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paBBQBQBBBtt.'  ^.^f 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


BEQUEST  OF 


Alice  R.  Hilgard 


\ju 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 


By  the  Same  AutJior 

THE  CARAVANERS 

ELIZABETH  AND  HER  GERMAN  GARDBN 

THE  PASTOR'S  WIFE 


*'0}iy  yes.     You're  both  very  fond  of  mey*'  said  Mr.  Twisty 
pulling  his  mouth  into  a  crooked  and  vnhappy  smile, 
"IFe  love  you,'*  said  Anna-Felicitas  simply. 


HRISTOPHER  AN 
COLUMBUS 


By  the  Author  of 
'Elizabeth  and  Her  German  Garden" 


U 


K,..v 


V'  "4^.^^ 


a> 


FRONTISPIECE 

BY 
ARTHUR    LITLE 


Garden  City  New  York 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1919 


COPTEIGHT,  1919,  BY 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OP 

TRANSLATION  INTO  FOREIGN  LANGUAGES, 

INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 


REP.  GEN.  LIB.     7^-7  /f:fn 

ACCESS,  no.       ^    ^  /  f  •:     -■ 


GIFT 


9S5 
836,5" 


34,' 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 


ivi87G10 


'I 


Christopher  and  Columbus 

CHAPTER  I 

THEIR-  names  were  really  Anna-Rose  and  Anna- 
Felicitas;  but  they  decided,  as  they  sat  huddled 
together  in  a  corner  of  the  second-class  deck  of 
the  American  liner  St.  Luke,  and  watched  the  dirty 
water  of  the  Mersey  slipping  past  and  the  Liverpool 
landing-stage  disappearing  into  mist,  and  felt  that  it 
was  comfortless  and  cold,  and  knew  they  hadn't  got 
a  father  or  a  mother,  and  remembered  that  they  were 
aliens,  and  realized  that  in  front  of  them  lay  a  great 
deal    of    gray,    uneasy,    dreadfully    wet    sea,    endless 
stretches  of  it,  days  and  days  of  it,  with  waves  on  top 
of  it  to  make  them  sick  and  submarines  beneath  it  to 
kill  them  if  they  could,  and  knew  that  they  hadn't  the 
remotest  idea,  not  the  very  remotest,  what  was  before 
them  when  and  if  they  did  get  across  to  the  other  side, 
and  knew  that  they  were  refugees,  castaways,  derelicts, 
two  wretched  little  Germans  who  were  neither  really 
Germans  nor  really  English  because  they  so  unfortu- 
nately,   so   complicatedly   were   both, — they   decided, 
looking  very  calm  and  determined  and  sitting  very 
close  together  beneath  the  rug  their  English  aunt  had 
given  them  to  put  round  their  miserable  alien  legs,  that 
what  they  really  were,  were  Christopher  and  Columbus, 
because  they  were  setting  out  to  discover  a  New  World. 
**It's  very  pleasant,"  said  Anna-Rose.     "It's  very 


4  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

pleasant  to  go  and  discover  America.  All  for  our- 
selves." 

It  was  Anna-Rose  who  suggested  their  being  Christo- 
pher and  Columbus.  She  was  the  elder  by  twenty 
minutes.  Both  had  had  their  seventeenth  birthday — 
and  what  a  birthday:  no  cake,  no  candles,  no  kisses 
and  wreaths  and  home-made  poems ;  but  then,  as  Anna- 
Felicitas  p>ointed  out,  to  comfort  Anna-Rose  who  was 
taking  it  hard,  you  can't  get  blood  out  of  an  aunt — only 
a  month  before.  Both  were  very  German  outside 
and  very  English  mside.  Both  had  fair  hair,  and 
the  sorts  of  chins  Germans  have,  and  eyes  the  colour 
of  the  sky  in  August  along  the  shores  of  the  Baltic. 
Their  noses  were  brief,  and  had  been  objected  to  in 
Germany,  where,  if  you  are  a  Junker's  daughter,  you 
are  expected  to  show  it  in  your  nose.  Anna-Rose  had 
a  tight  little  body,  inclined  to  the  round.  Anna- 
Fehcitas,  in  spite  of  being  a  twin,  seemed  to  have 
made  the  most  of  her  twenty  extra  minutes  to  grow 
more  in;  anyhow  she  was  tall  and  thin,  and  she  drooped; 
and  having  perhaps  grown  quicker  made  her  eyes 
more  dreamy,  and  her  thoughts  more  slow.  And  both 
held  their  heads  up  with  a  great  air  of  calm  whenever 
anybody  on  the  ship  looked  at  them,  as  who  should 
say  serenely,  "We're  thoroughly  happy,  and  having 
the  time  of  our  lives." 

For  worlds  they  wouldn't  have  admitted  to  each 
other  that  they  were  even  aware  of  such  a  thing  as 
being  anxious  or  wanting  to  cry.  Like  other  persons  of 
English  blood,  they  never  were  so  cheerful  nor  pre- 
tended to  be  so  much  amused  as  when  they  were  right 
down  on  the  very  bottom  of  their  luck.  Like  other 
persons  of  German  blood,  they  had  the  squashiest  cor- 
ners deep  in  their  hearts,  where  they  secretly  clung  to 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  5 

cakes  and  Christmas  trees,  and  fought  a  tendency  to 
celebrate  every  possible  anniversary,  both  dead  and 
alive. 

The  gulls,  circling  white  against  the  gloomy  sky  over 
the  rubbish  that  floated  on  the  Mersey,  made  them  feel 
extraordinarily  forlorn.  Empty  boxes,  bits  of  straw, 
orange-peel,  a  variety  of  dismal  dirtiness  lay  about  on 
the  sullen  water;  England  was  slipping  away,  England, 
their  mother's  country,  the  country  of  their  dreams 
ever  since  they  could  remember — and  the  St  Luke 
with  a  loud  screech  had  suddenly  stopped. 

Neither  of  them  could  help  jumping  a  little  at  that 
and  getting  an  inch  closer  together  beneath  the  rug. 
Surely  it  wasn't  a  submarine  already? 

"We're  Christopher  and  Columbus,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  quickly,  changing  as  it  were  the  unspoken  con- 
versation. 

As  the  eldest  she  had  a  great  sense  of  her  responsi- 
bility toward  her  twin,  and  considered  it  one  of  her 
first  duties  to  cheer  and  encourage  her.  Their  mother 
had  always  cheered  and  encouraged  them,  and  hadn't 
seemed  to  mind  anything,  however  awful  it  was,  that 
happened  to  her, — such  as,  for  instance,  when  the  war 
began  and  they  three,  their  father  having  died  some 
years  before,  left  their  home  up  by  the  Baltic,  just  as 
there  was  the  most  heavenly  weather  going  on,  and  the 
garden  was  a  dream,  and  the  blue  Chinchilla  cat  had 
produced  four  perfect  kittens  that  very  day, — all  of 
whom  had  to  be  left  to  what  Anna-Felicitas,  whose 
thoughts  if  slow  were  picturesque  once  she  had  got 
them,  called  the  tender  mercies  of  a  savage  and  licen- 
tious soldiery, — ^and  came  by  slow  and  difficult  stages 
to  England;  or  such  as  when  their  mother  began  catch- 
ing cold  and  didn't  seem  at  last  ever  able  to  leave  off 


6  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

catching  cold,  and  though  she  tried  to  pretend  she 
didn't  mind  colds  and  that  they  didn't  matter,  it  was 
plain  that  these  colds  did  at  last  matter  very  much, 
for  between  them  they  killed  her. 

Their  mother  had  always  been  cheerful  and  full  of 
hope.  Now  that  she  was  dead,  it  was  clearly  Anna- 
Rose's  duty,  as  the  next  eldest  in  the  family,  to  carry 
on  the  tradition  and  discountenance  too  much  drooping 
in  Anna-Felicitas.  Anna-Felicitas  was  staring  much 
too  thoughtfully  at  the  deepening  gloom  of  the  late 
afternoon  sky  and  the  rubbish  brooding  on  the  face 
of  the  waters,  and  she  had  jumped  rather  excessively 
when  the  St.  Luke  stopped  so  suddenly,  just  as  if  it 
were  putting  on  the  brake  hard,  and  emitted  that 
agonized  whistle. 

"We're  Christopher  and  Columbus,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  quickly,  "and  we're  going  to  discover  America." 

"Very  well,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "I'll  be  Christo- 
pher." 

"No.     I'll  be  Christopher,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Very  well,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  who  was  the  most 
amiable,  acquiescent  person  in  the  world.  "Then  I 
suppose  I'll  have  to  be  Columbus.  But  I  think  Christo- 
pher sounds  prettier." 

Both  rolled  their  r's  incurably.  It  was  evidently  in 
their  blood,  for  nothing,  no  amount  of  teaching  and 
admonishment,  could  get  them  out  of  it.  Before  they 
were  able  to  talk  at  all,  in  those  happy  days  when 
parents  make  astounding  assertions  to  other  parents 
about  the  intelligence  and  certain  future  brilliancy  of 
their  offspring,  and  the  other  parents,  however  much 
they  may  pity  such  self-deception,  can't  contradict, 
because  after  all  it  just  possibly  may  be  so,  the  most 
foolish    people    occasionally    producing    geniuses, — in 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  7 

those  happy  days  of  undisturbed  bright  castle-building, 
the  mother,  who  was  English,  of  the  two  derelicts  now 
huddled  on  the  dank  deck  of  the  St,  Luke,  said  to  the 
father,  who  was  German,  "At  any  rate  these  two  blessed 
little  bundles  of  deliciousness " — she  had  one  on  each 
arm  and  was  tickling  their  noses  alternately  with  her 
eyelashes,  and  they  were  screaming  for  joy — "won't 
have  to  learn  either  German  or  English.  They'll 
just  know  them." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  father,  who  was  a  cautious  man. 

"They're  born  bi-lingual,"  said  the  mother;  and  the 
twins  wheezed  and  choked  with  laughter,  for  she  was 
tickling  them  beneath  their  chins,  softly  fluttering 
her  eyelashes  along  the  creases  of  fat  she  thought  so 
adorable. 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  father. 

"It  gives  them  a  tremendous  start,"  said  the  mother; 
and  the  twins  squirmed  in  a  dreadful  ecstasy,  for  she 
had  now  got  to  their  ears. 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  father. 

But  what  happened  was  that  they  didn't  speak 
either  language.  Not,  that  is,  as  a  native  should. 
Their  German  bristled  with  mistakes.  They  spoke  it 
with  a  foreign  accent.  It  was  copious,  but  incorrect. 
Almost  the  last  thing  their  father,  an  accurate  man,  said 
to  them  as  he  lay  dying,  had  to  do  with  a  misplaced 
dative.  And  when  they  talked  English  it  rolled  about 
uncontrollably  on  its  r's,  and  had  a  great  many  long 
words  in  it  got  from  Milton,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  and 
people  like  that,  whom  their  mother  had  particularly 
loved,  but  as  they  talked  far  more  to  their  mother 
than  to  their  father,  who  was  a  man  of  much  briefness 
in  words  though  not  in  temper,  they  were  better  on 
the  whole  at  English  than  German. 


8  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Their  mother,  who  loved  England  more  the  longer 
she  lived  away  from  it, — "As  one  does;  and  the  same 
principle,''  Anna-Rose  explained  to  Anna-Felicitas 
when  they  had  lived  some  time  with  their  aunt  and 
uncle,  "applies  to  relations,  aunts'  husbands,  and  the 
clergy," — never  tired  of  telling  her  children  about  it, 
and  its  poetry,  and  its  spirit,  and  the  greatness  and 
glory  of  its  points  of  view.  They  drank  it  all  in  and 
believed  every  word  of  it,  for  so  did  their  mother;  and 
as  they  grew  up  they  flung  themselves  on  all  the  English 
books  they  could  lay  hands  upon,  and  they  read  with 
their  mother  and  learned  by  heart  most  of  the  obviously 
beautiful  thuigs;  and  because  she  glowed  with  enthu- 
siasm they  glowed  too — Anna-Rose  in  a  flare  and  a 
flash,  Anna-Felicitas  slow  and  steadily.  They  adored 
their  mother.  Whatever  she  loved  they  loved  blindly. 
It  was  a  pity  she  died.  She  died  soon  after  the  war 
began.  They  had  been  so  happy,  so  dreadfully 
happy.     .     .     . 

"You  can't  be  Christopher,"  said  Anna-Rose,  giving 
herself  a  shake,  for  here  she  was  thinking  of  her  mother, 
and  it  didn't  do  to  think  of  one's  mother,  she  found; 
at  least,  not  when  one  is  off  to  a  new  life  and  everything 
is  all  promise  because  it  isn't  anything  else,  and  not  if 
one's  mother  happened  to  have  been  so — well,  so  fear- 
fully sweet.  "You  can't  be  Christopher,  because,  you 
see,  I'm  the  eldest." 

Anna-Felicitas  didn't  see  what  being  the  eldest  had 
to  do  with  it,  but  she  only  said,  "Very  well,"  in  her 
soft  voice,  and  expressed  a  hope  that  Anna-Rose  would 
see  her  way  not  to  call  her  Col  for  short.  "I'm  afraid 
you  will,  though,"  she  added,  "and  then  I  shall  feel 
so  like  Onkel  Nicolas." 

This  was  their  German  uncle,  known  during  his  life- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  9 

time,  which  had  abruptly  left  off  when  the  twins  were 
ten,  as  Onkel  Col;  a  very  ancient  j>erson,  older  by  far 
even  than  their  father,  who  had  seemed  so  very  old. 
But  Onkel  Col  had  been  older  than  anybody  at  all, 
except  the  pictures  of  the  liebe  Gott  in  Blake's  illustra- 
tions to  the  Book  of  Job.  He  came  to  a  bad  end. 
Neither  their  father  nor  their  mother  told  them  any- 
thing except  that  Onkel  Col  was  dead;  and  their  father 
put  a  black  band  round  the  left  sleeve  of  his  tweed 
country  suit  and  was  more  good-tempered  than  ever, 
and  their  mother,  when  they  questioned  her,  just  said 
that  f)oor  Onkel  Col  had  gone  to  heaven,  and  that  in 
future  they  would  speak  of  him  as  Onkel  Nicolas,  be- 
cause it  was  more  respectful. 

"But  why  does  mummy  call  him  poor,  when  he's 
gone  to  heaven?"  Anna-Felicitas  asked  Anna-Rose 
privately,  in  the  recesses  of  the  garden. 

"First  of  all,"  said  Anna-Rose,  who,  being  the  eldest, 
as  she  so  often  explained  to  her  sister,  naturally  knew 
more  about  everything,  "because  the  angels  won't 
like  him.  Nobody  could  like  Onkel  Col.  Even  if 
they're  angels.  And  though  they're  obliged  to  have 
him  there  because  he  was  such  a  very  good  man,  they 
won't  talk  to  him  much  or  notice  him  much  when  God 
isn't  looking.  And  second  of  all,  because  you  are  poor 
when  you  get  to  heaven.  Everybody  is  poor  in  heaven. 
Nobody  takes  their  things  with  them,  and  all  Onkel 
Col's  money  is  still  on  earth.  He  couldn't  even  take 
his  clothes  with  him." 

"Then  is  he  quite — did  Onkel  Col  go  there  quite " 

Anna-Felicitas  stopped.  The  word  seemed  too 
awful  in  connection  with  Onkel  Col,  that  terrifying  old 
gentleman  who  had  roared  at  them  from  the  folds  of  so 
many  wonderful  wadded  garments  whenever  they  were 


10         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

led  in,  trembling,  to  see  him,  for  he  had  gout  and  was 
very  terrible;  and  it  seemed  particularly  awful  when  one 
tliought  of  Onkel  Col  going  to  heaven,  which  was  surely 
of  all  places  the  most  endimanche. 

"Of  course,"  nodded  Anna-Rose;  but  even  she 
dropped  her  voice  a  little.  She  peeped  about  among 
the  bushes  a  moment,  then  put  her  mouth  close  to 
Anna-Felicitas's  ear,  and  whispered,  "Stark." 

They  stared  at  one  another  for  a  space  with  awe  and 
horror  in  their  eyes. 

"You  see,"  then  went  on  Anna-Rose  rather  quickly, 
hurrying  away  from  the  awful  vision,  "one  knows  one 
doesn't  have  clothes  in  heaven  because  they  don't 
have  the  moth  there.  It  says  so  in  the  Bible.  And 
you  can't  have  the  moth  without  having  anything  for 
it  to  go  into." 

"Then  they  don't  have  to  have  naphthalin  either," 
said  Anna-Felicitas,  "and  don't  all  have  to  smell  horrid 
in  the  autumn  when  they  take  their  furs  out." 

"No.  And  thieves  don't  break  in  and  steal  either 
in  heaven,"  continued  Anna-Rose,  "and  the  reason  why 
is  that  there  isnt  anything  to  steal." 

"There's  angels,"  suggested  Anna-Felicitas  after  a 
pause,  for  she  didn't  like  to  think  there  was  nothing 
really  valuable  in  heaven. 

"Oh,  nobody  ever  steals  them,^'  said  Anna-Rose. 

Anna-Felicitas's  slow  thoughts  revolved  round  this 
new  uncomfortable  view  of  heaven.  It  seemed,  if 
Anna-Rose  were  right,  and  she  always  was  right  for 
she  said  so  herself,  that  heaven  couldn't  be  such  a  safe 
place  after  all,  nor  such  a  kind  place.  Thieves  could 
break  in  and  steal  if  they  wanted  to.  She  had  a  prop>er 
horror  of  thieves.  She  was  sure  the  night  would  cer- 
tainly come  when  they  would  break  into  her  father's 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         11 

Schloss,  or,  as  her  English  nurse  called  it,  her  dear 
Papa's  slosh;  and  she  was  worried  that  poor  Onkel  Col 
should  be  being  snubbed  up  there,  and  without  anything 
to  put  on,  which  would  make  being  snubbed  so  much 
worse,  for  clothes  did  somehow  comfort  one. 

She  took  her  worries  to  the  nursemaid,  and  choosing 
a  moment  when  she  knew  Anna-Rose  wished  to  be 
unnoticed,  it  being  her  hour  for  inconspicuously  eating 
unripe  apples  at  the  bottom  of  the  orchard,  an  exercise 
Anna-Felicitas  only  didn't  indulge  in  because  she  had 
learned  through  affliction  that  her  inside,  fond  and 
proud  of  it  as  she  was,  was  yet  not  of  that  superior  and 
blessed  kind  that  suffers  green  apples  gladly — she 
sought  out  the  nursemaid,  whose  name,  too,  confusingly, 
was  Anna,  and  led  the  conversation  up  to  heaven  and 
the  possible  conditions  prevailing  in  it  by  asking  her 
to  tell  her,  in  strict  confidence  and  as  woman  to  woman, 
what  she  thought  Onkel  Col  exactly  looked  like  at  that 
moment. 

"Unrecognizable,"  said  the  nursemaid  promptly. 

"Unrecognizable?"  echoed  Anna-Felicitas. 

And  the  nursemaid,  after  glancing  over  her  shoulder 
to  see  if  the  governess  were  nowhere  in  sight,  told  Anna- 
Felicitas  the  true  story  of  Onkel  Col's  end:  which  is  so 
bad  that  it  isn't  fit  to  be  put  in  any  book  except  one 
with  an  appendix. 

A  stewardess  passed  just  as  Anna-Felicitas  was 
asking  Anna-Rose  not  to  remind  her  of  these  grim  por- 
tions of  the  past  by  calling  her  Col,  a  stewardess  in  such 
a  very  clean  white  cap  that  she  looked  both  rehable 
and  benevolent,  while  secretly  she  was  neither. 

"Can  you  please  tell  us  why  we're  stopping?"  Anna- 
Rose  inquired  of  her  politely,  leaning  forward  to  catch 
her  attention  as  she  hurried  by. 


n         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

The  stewardess  allowed  her  roving  eye  to  alight  for  a 
moment  on  the  two  objects  beneath  the  rug.  Their 
chairs  were  close  together,  and  the  rug  covered  them 
both  up  to  their  chins.  Over  the  top  of  it  their  heads 
appeared,  exactly  alike  as  far  as  she  could  see  in  the 
dusk;  round  heads,  each  with  a  blue  knitted  cap  pulled 
well  over  its  ears,  and  round  eyes  staring  at  her  with 
what  anybody  except  the  stewardess  would  have  recog- 
nized as  a  passionate  desire  for  some  sort  of  reassurance. 
They  might  have  been  seven  instead  of  seventeen  for 
all  the  stewardess  could  tell.  They  looked  younger 
than  anything  she  had  yet  seen  sitting  alone  on  a  deck 
and  asking  questions.  But  she  was  an  exasperated 
widow,  who  had  never  had  children  and  wasn't  to  be 
touched  by  anything  except  a  tip,  besides  despising, 
because  she  was  herself  a  second-class  stewardess,  all 
second-class  passengers,- — **As  one  does,"  Anna-Rose 
explained  later  on  to  Anna-Felicitas,  "and  the  same 
principle  applies  to  Jews."  So  she  said  with  an  acidity 
completely  at  variance  with  the  promise  of  her  cap, 
"Ask  the  Captain,"  and  disappeared. 

The  twins  looked  at  each  other.  They  knew  very 
well  that  captains  on  ships  were  mighty  beings  who 
were  not  asked  questions. 

"She's  trifling  with  us,"  murmured  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Yes,"  Anna-Rose  was  obliged  to  admit,  though  the 
thought  was  repugnant  to  her  that  they  should  look 
like  people  a  stewardess  would  dare  trifle  with. 

"Perhaps  she  thinks  we're  youiiger  than  we  are," 
she  said  after  a  silence. 

"Yes.  She  couldn't  see  how  long  our  dresses  are, 
because  of  the  rug." 

"No.  And  it's  only  that  end  of  us  that  really  shows 
we're  grown  up." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         13 

"Yes.  She  ought  to  have  seen  us  six  months  ago." 
Indeed  she  ought.  Even  the  stewardess  would 
have  been  surprised  at  the  activities  and  complete 
appearance  of  the  two  pupae  now  rolled  motionless  in 
the  rug.  For,  six  months  ago,  they  had  both  been 
probationers  in  a  children's  hospital  in  Worcestershire, 
arrayed,  even  as  the  stewardess,  in  spotless  caps,  hurry- 
ing hither  and  thither  with  trays  of  food,  sweeping  and 
washing  up,  learning  to  make  beds  in  a  given  time,  and 
be  deft,  and  quick,  and  never  tired,  and  always  punc- 
tual. 

This  place  had  been  got  them  by  the  efforts  and  in- 
fluence of  their  Aunt  Alice,  that  aunt  who  had  given 
them  the  rug  on  their  departure  and  who  had  omitted 
to  celebrate  their  birthday.  She  was  an  amiable  aunt, 
but  she  didn't  understand  about  birthdays.  It  was 
the  first  one  they  had  had  since  they  were  complete 
orphans,  and  so  they  were  rather  sensitive  about  it. 
But  they  hadn't  cried,  because  since  their  mother's 
death  they  had  done  with  crying.  What  could  there 
ever  again  be  in  the  world  bad  enough  to  cry  about  after 
that?  And  besides,  just  before  she  dropped  away 
from  them  into  the  unconsciousness  out  of  which  she 
never  came  back,  but  instead  just  dropped  a  Httle 
further  into  death,  she  had  opened  her  eyes  unexpectedly 
and  caught  them  sitting  together  in  a  row  by  her  bed, 
two  images  of  agony,  with  tears  rolling  down  their 
swollen  faces  and  their  noses  in  a  hopeless  state,  and 
after  looking  at  them  a  moment  as  if  she  had  slowly 
come  up  from  some  vast  depth  and  distance  and  were 
gradually  recognizing  them,  she  had  whispered  with 
a  flicker  of  the  old  encouraging  smile  that  had  com- 
forted every  hurt  and  bruise  they  had  ever  had,  "  Dont 
cry     .     .     .     Httle  darlings,  don't  cry.     .     .     ." 


14         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

But  on  that  first  birthday  after  her  death  they 
had  got  more  and  more  solemn  as  time  passed,  and 
breakfast  was  cleared  away,  and  there  w<^re  no  sounds, 
prick  up  their  ears  as  they  might,  of  subdued  prepara- 
tions in  the  next  room,  no  stealthy  going  up  and  down 
stairs  to  fetch  the  presents,  and  at  last  no  hope  at  all 
of  the  final  glorious  flinging  open  of  the  door  and  the 
vision  inside  of  two  cakes  all  glittering  with  candles, 
each  on  a  table  covered  with  flowers  and  all  the  things 
one  has  most  wanted. 

Their  aunt  didn't  know.  How  should  she?  England 
was  a  great  and  beloved  country,  but  it  didn't  have 
proper  birthdays. 

"Every  country  has  one  drawback,"  Anna-Rose 
explained  to  Anna-Felicitas  when  the  morning  was 
finally  over,  in  case  she  should  by  any  chance  be  think- 
ing badly  of  the  dear  country  that  had  produced  their 
mother  as  well  as  Shakespeare,  "and  not  knowing  about 
birthdays  is  England's." 

"There's  Uncle  Arthur,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  whose 
honest  mind  groped  continually  after  accuracy. 

"Yes,"  Anna-Rose  admitted  after  a  pause.  "Yes. 
There's  Uncle  Arthur." 


CHAPTER  n 

UNCLE  ARTHUR  was  the  husband  of  Aunt 
Alice.  He  didn't  like  foreigners,  and  said  so. 
He  never  had  liked  them  and  had  always  said 
so.  It  wasn't  the  war  at  all,  it  was  the  foreigners.  But 
as  the  war  went  on,  and  these  German  nieces  of  his  wife 
became  more  and  more,  as  he  told  her,  a  blighted  nui- 
sance, so  did  he  become  more  and  more  pointed,  and 
said  he  didn't  mind  French  foreigners,  nor  Russian 
foreigners;  and  a  few  weeks  later,  that  it  wasn't  Italian 
foreigners  either  that  he  minded;  and  still  later,  that 
nor  was  it  foreigners  indigenous  to  the  soil  of  countries 
called  neutral.  These  things  he  said  aloud  at  meals 
in  a  general  way.  To  his  wife  when  alone  he  said  much 
more. 

Anna-Rose,  who  was  nothing  if  not  intrepid,  at 
first  tried  to  soften  his  heart  by  offering  to  read  aloud 
to  him  in  the  evenings  when  he  came  home  weary  from 
his  daily  avocations,  which  were  golf.  Her  own  sug- 
gestion instantly  projected  a  touching  picture  on  her 
impressionable  imagination  of  youth,  grateful  for  a 
roof  over  its  head,  in  return  alleviating  the  tedium  of 
crabbed  age  by  introducing  its  uncle,  who  from  his 
remarks  was  evidently  unacquainted  with  them,  to  the 
best  productions  of  the  great  masters  of  English  litera- 
ture. 

But  Uncle  Arthur  merely  stared  at  her  with  a  lack- 
lustre eye  when  she  proposed  it,  from  his  wide-legged 
position  on  the  hearthrug,  where  he  was  moving  money 

15 


16         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

about  in  trouscr-pockets  of  the  best  material.  And 
later  on  she  discovered  that  he  had  always  supposed  the 
"Faery  Queen,"  and  "Adonais,"  and  "In  Memoriam," 
names  he  had  heard  at  intervals  during  his  life,  for  he 
was  fifty  and  such  things  do  sometimes  get  mentioned, 
were  well-known  racehorses. 

Uncle  Arthur,  like  Onkel  Col,  was  a  very  good  man, 
and  though  he  said  things  about  foreigners  he  did 
stick  to  these  unfortunate  alien  nieces  longer  than  one 
would  have  supposed  possible  if  one  had  overheard 
what  he  said  to  Aunt  Alice  in  the  seclusion  of  their  bed. 
His  ordered  existence,  shaken  enough  by  the  war. 
Heaven  knew,  was  shaken  in  its  innermost  parts, 
in  its  very  marrow,  by  the  arrival  of  the  two  Germans. 
Other  people  round  about  had  Belgians  in  their  homes, 
and  groaned;  but  who  but  he,  the  most  immensely 
British  of  anybody,  had  Germans?  And  he  couldn't 
groan,  because  they  were,  besides  being  motherless 
creatures,  his  own  wife's  flesh  and  blood.  Not  openly 
at  least  could  he  groan;  but  he  could  and  did  do  it  in 
bed.  Why  on  earth  that  silly  mother  of  theirs  couldn't 
have  stayed  quietly  on  her  Pomeranian  sand-heap 
where  she  belonged,  instead  of  coming  gallivanting 
over  to  England,  and  then  when  she  had  got  there  not 
even  decently  staying  alive  and  seeing  to  her  children 
herself,  he  at  frequent  intervals  told  Aunt  Alice  in  bed 
that  he  would  like  to  know. 

Aunt  Alice,  who  after  twenty  years  of  life  with  Uncle 
Arthur  was  both  silent  and  sleek  (for  he  fed  her  well), 
sighed  and  said  nothing.  She  herself  was  quietly  going 
through  very  much  on  behalf  of  her  nieces.  Jessup 
didn't  like  handing  dishes  to  Germans.  The  trades- 
people twitted  the  cook  with  having  to  cook  for  them, 
and  were  facetious  about  sausages  and  asked  how  one 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         17 

made  sauerkraut.  Her  acquaintances  told  her  they 
were  very  sorry  for  her,  and  said  they  supposed  she 
knew  what  she  was  doing  and  that  it  was  all  right  about 
spies,  but  really  one  heard  such  strange  things,  one 
never  could  possibly  tell  even  with  children;  and  regu- 
larly the  local  policeman  bicycled  over  to  see  if  the 
aliens,  who  were  registered  at  the  county-town  police- 
station,  were  still  safe.  And  then  they  looked  so 
very  German,  Aunt  Alice  felt.  There  was  no  mistaking 
them.  And  every  time  they  opened  their  mouths 
there  were  all  those  r's  rolling  about.  She  hardly 
liked  callers  to  find  her  nieces  in  her  drawing-room  at 
tea-time,  they  were  so  difficult  to  explain;  yet  they  were 
too  old  to  shut  up  in  a  nursery. 

After  three  months  of  them,  Uncle  Arthur  suggested 
sending  them  back  to  Germany;  but  their  consternation 
had  been  so  great  and  their  entreaties  to  be  kept  where 
they  were  so  desperate  that  he  said  no  more  about  that. 
Besides,  they  told  him  that  if  they  went  back  there 
they  would  be  sure  to  be  shot  as  spies,  for  over  there 
nobody  would  believe  they  were  German,  just  as  over 
here  nobody  would  believe  they  were  English;  and 
besides,  this  was  in  those  days  of  the  war  when  England 
was  still  regarding  Germany  as  more  mistaken  than 
vicious,  and  was  as  full  as  ever  of  the  tradition  of  great 
and  elaborate  indulgence  and  generosity  toward  a  foe, 
and  Uncle  Arthur,  whatever  he  might  say,  was  not  going 
to  be  behind  his  country  in  generosity. 

Yet  as  time  passed,  and  feeling  tightened,  and  the 
hideous  necklace  of  war  grew  more  and  more  frightful 
with  each  fresh  bead  of  horror  strung  upon  it.  Uncle 
Arthur,  though  still  in  principle  remaining  good,  in 
practice  found  himself  vindictive.  He  was  saddled; 
that's   what  he  was.     Saddled  with    this    monstrous 


18         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

unmerited  burden.  He,  the  most  patriotic  of  Britons; 
looked  at  askance  by  his  best  friends,  being  given  notice 
by  his  old  servants,  having  particular  attention  paid 
his  house  at  night  by  the  police,  getting  anonymous 
letters  about  lights  seen  in  his  upper  windows  the  nights 
the  Zeppelins  came,  which  w^ere  the  windows  of  the 
floor  those  blighted  twins  slept  on,  and  all  because  he 
had  married  Aunt  Alice. 

At  this  period  Aunt  Alice  went  to  bed  with  reluctance. 
It  was  not  a  place  she  had  ever  gone  to  very  willingly 
since  she  married  Uncle  Arthur,  for  he  was  the  kind  of 
husband  who  rebukes  in  bed;  but  now  she  was  down- 
right reluctant.  It  was  painful  to  her  to  be  told  that 
she  had  brought  this  disturbance  into  Uncle  Arthur's 
life  by  having  let  him  marry  her.  Inquiring  backwards 
into  her  recollections  it  appeared  to  her  that  she  had 
had  no  say  at  all  about  being  married,  but  that  Uncle 
Arthur  had  told  her  she  was  going  to  be,  and  then  that 
she  had  been.  Which  was  what  had  indeed  happened ; 
for  Aunt  Alice  was  a  round  little  woman  even  in  those 
days,  nicely  though  not  obtrusively  padded  with  agree- 
able fat  at  the  corners,  and  her  skin,  just  as  now,  had 
the  moist  delicacy  that  comes  from  eating  a  great 
many  chickens.  Also  she  suggested,  just  as  now,  most 
of  the  things  most  men  want  to  come  home  to, — 
slippers,  and  drawn  curtains,  and  a  blazing  fire,  and 
peace  within  one's  borders,  and  even,  as  Anna-Rose 
pointed  out  privately  to  Anna-Felicitas  after  they  had 
come  across  them  for  the  first  time,  she  suggested 
muffins;  and  so,  being  in  these  varied  fashions  succulent, 
she  was  doomed  to  make  some  good  man  happy.  But 
she  did  find  it  real  hard  work. 

It  grew  plain  to  Aunt  Alice  after  another  month  of 
them  that  Uncle  Arthur  would  not  much  longer  endure 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  19 

his  nieces,  and  that  even  if  he  did  she  would  not  be 
able  to  endure  Uncle  Arthur.  The  thought  was  very 
dreadful  to  her  that  she  was  being  forced  to  choose 
between  two  duties,  and  that  she  could  not  fulfil  both. 
It  came  to  this  at  last,  that  she  must  either  stand  by 
her  nieces,  her  dead  sister's  fatherless  children,  and  face 
all  the  diflSculties  and  discomforts  of  such  a  standing 
by,  go  away  with  them,  take  care  of  them,  till  the  war 
was  over;  or  she  must  stand  by  Arthur. 

She  chose  Arthur. 

How  could  she,  for  nieces  she  had  hardly  seen,  aban- 
don her  husband?  Besides,  he  had  scolded  her  so 
steadily  during  the  whole  of  their  married  life  that  she 
was  now  unalterably  attached  to  him.  Sometimes  a 
wild  thought  did  for  a  moment  illuminate  the  soothing 
dusk  of  her  mind,  the  thought  of  doing  the  heroic  thing, 
leaving  him  for  them,  and  helping  and  protecting  the 
two  poor  aliens  till  happier  days  should  return.  If 
there  were  any  good  stuff  in  Arthur  would  he  not  recog- 
nize, however  angry  he  might  be,  that  she  was  doing 
at  least  a  Christian  thing?  But  this  illumination  would 
soon  die  out.  Her  comforts  choked  it.  She  was  too 
well-fed.  After  twenty  years  of  it,  she  no  longer  had 
the  figure  for  lean  and  dangerous  enterprises. 

And  having  definitely  chosen  Arthur,  she  concen- 
trated what  she  had  of  determination  in  finding  an 
employment  for  her  nieces  that  would  remove  them 
beyond  the  range  of  his  growing  wrath.  She  found  it  in 
a  children's  hospital  as  far  away  as  Worcestershire, 
a  hospital  subscribed  to  very  largely  by  Arthur,  for 
being  a  good  man  he  subscribed  to  hospitals.  The  ma- 
tron objected,  but  Aunt  Alice  overrode  the  matron; 
and  from  January  to  April  Uncle  Arthur's  house  was 
pure  from  Germans. 


20         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Then  they  came  back  again. 

It  had  been  imp>ossible  to  keep  them.  The  nurses 
wouldn't  work  with  them.  The  sick  children  had 
relapses  when  they  discovered  who  it  was  who  brought 
them  their  food,  and  cried  for  their  mothers.  It  had 
been  arranged  between  Aunt  Alice  and  the  matron  that 
the  unfortunate  nationality  of  her  nieces  should  not  be 
mentioned.  They  were  just  to  be  Aunt  Alice's  nieces, 
the  Miss  Twinklers, — ("We  will  leave  out  the  von," 
said  Aunt  Alice,  full  of  unnatural  cunning.  "They 
have  a  von,  you  know,  poor  things — such  a  very  label- 
ling thing  to  have.  But  Twinkler  without  it  might 
quite  well  be  English.  Who  can  possibly  tell?  It 
isn't  as  though  they  had  had  some  shocking  name  like 
Bismarck.") 

Nothing,  however,  availed  against  the  damning  evi- 
dence of  the  rolled  r's.  Combined  with  the  silvery 
fair  hair  and  the  determined  little  mouths  and  chins, 
it  was  irresistible.  Clearly  they  were  foreigners,  and 
equally  clearly  they  were  not  Italians,  or  Russians,  or 
French.  Within  a  week  the  nurses  spoke  of  them  in 
private  as  Fritz  and  Franz.  Within  a  fortnight  a 
deputation  of  staff  sisters  went  to  the  matron  and  asked, 
on  patriotic  grounds,  for  the  removal  of  the  Misses 
Twinkler.  The  matron,  with  the  fear  of  Uncle  Arthur 
in  her  heart,  for  he  was  altogether  the  biggest  subscriber, 
sharply  sent  the  deputation  about  its  business;  and 
being  a  matron  of  great  competence  and  courage  she 
would  probably  have  continued  to  be  able  to  force  the 
new  probationers  upon  the  nurses  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  inability,  which  was  conspicuous,  of  the  younger 
Miss  Twinkler  to  acquire  efficiency. 

In  vain  did  Anna-Rose  try  to  make  up  for  Anna- 
Felicitas's  shortcomings  by  a  double  zeal,  a  double 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         21 

willingness  and  cheerfulness.  Anna-Felicitas  was  a 
bom  dreamer,  a  born  bungler  with  her  hands  and  feet. 
She  not  only  never  from  first  to  last  succeeded  in  filling 
the  thirty  hot-water  bottles,  which  were  her  care,  in 
thirty  minutes,  which  was  her  duty,  but  every  time  she 
met  a  pail  standing  about  she  knocked  against  it  and 
it  fell  over.  Patients  and  nurses  watched  her  approach 
with  apprehension.  Her  ward  was  in  a  constant  con- 
dition of  flood. 

"It's  because  she's  thinking  of  something  else," 
Anna-Rose  tried  eagerly  to  explain  to  the  indignant 
sister-in-charge . 

"Thinking  of  something  else!"  echoed  the  sister. 

"She  reads,  you  see,  a  lot — whenever  she  gets  the 
chance  she  reads " 

"Reads!"  echoed  the  sister. 

"And  then,  you  see,  she  gets  thinking " 

"Thinking!     Reading  doesn't  make  me  think." 

"With  much  regret,"  wrote  the  matron  to  Aunt 
Alice,  "I  am  obliged  to  dismiss  your  younger  niece, 
Nurse  Twinkler  II.  She  has  no  vocation  for  nursing. 
On  the  other  hand,  your  elder  niece  is  shaping  well 
and  I  shall  be  pleaded  to  keep  her  on." 

"But  I  can't  stop  on,"  Anna-Rose  said  to  the  matron 
when  she  announced  these  decisions  to  her.  "I  can't 
be  separated  from  my  sister.  I'd  like  very  much 
to  know  what  would  become  of  that  poor  child 
without  me  to  look  after  her.  You  forget  I'm  the 
eldest." 

The  matron  put  down  her  pen, — she  was  a  woman 
who  made  many  notes — and  stared  at  Nurse  Twinkler. 
Not  in  this  fashion  did  her  nurses  speak  to  her.  But 
Anna-Rose,  having  been  brought  up  in  a  spot  remote 
from  everything  except  love  and  laughter,  had  all  the 


n         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

fearlessness  of  ignorance;  and  in  her  extreme  youth  and 
smallness,  with  her  eyes  shining  and  her  face  heated 
she  appeared  to  the  matron  rather  like  an  indignant 
kitten. 

"Very  well,"  said  the  matron  gravely,  suppressing 
a  smile.  "One  should  always  do  what  one  considers 
one's  first  duty." 

So  the  Twinklers  went  back  to  Uncle  Arthur,  and  the 
matron  was  greatly  relieved,  for  she  certainly  didn't 
want  them,  and  Uncle  Arthur  said  Damn. 

"Arthur,"  gently  reproved  his  wife. 

"I  sa.y  Damn  and  I  mean  Damn,"  said  Uncle  Arthur. 
"AVhat  the  hell  can  we " 

"Arthur,"  said  his  wife. 

"I  say,  what  the  hell  can  we  do  with  a  couple  of 
Germans?  If  people  wouldn't  swallow  them  last  win- 
ter are  they  going  to  swallow  them  any  better  now.^^ 
God,  what  troubles  a  man  lets  himself  in  for  when  he 
marries!" 

"I  do  beg  you,  Arthur,  not  to  use  those  coarse  words," 
said  Aunt  Alice,  tears  in  her  gentle  eyes. 

There  followed  a  period  of  desperate  exertion  on 
the  part  of  Aunt  Alice.  She  answered  advertisements 
and  offered  the  twins  as  nursery  governesses,  as  cheerful 
companions,  as  mothers'  helps,  even  as  orphans  willing 
to  be  adopted.  She  relinquished  every  claim  on  sal- 
aries, she  offered  them  for  nothing,  and  at  last  she 
offered  them  accompanied  by  a  bonus.  "  Their  mother 
was  English.  They  are  quite  English,"  wrote  Aunt 
Alice  innumerable  times  in  innumerable  letters.  "I 
feel  bound,  however,  to  tell  you  that  they  once  had  a 
German  father,  but  of  course  it  was  through  no  fault 
of  their  own,"  etc.,  etc.  Aunt  Alice's  hand  ached  with 
writing  letters;  and  any  solution  of  the  problem  that 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         23 

might  possibly  have  been  arrived  at  came  to  nothing 
because  Anna-Rose  would  not  be  separated  from  Anna- 
Felicitas,  and  if  it  was  difficult  to  find  anybody  who 
would  take  on  one  German  nobody  at  all  could  be  found 
to  take  on  two. 

Meanwhile  Uncle  Arthur  grew  nightly  more  dreadful 
in  bed.  Aunt  Alice  was  at  her  wits'  end,  and  took  to 
crying  helplessly.  The  twins  racked  their  brains  to 
find  a  way  out,  quite  as  anxious  to  relieve  Uncle  Arthur 
of  their  presence  as  he  was  to  be  relieved.  If  only  they 
could  be  independent,  do  something,  work,  go  as 
housemaids, — anything. 

They  concocted  an  anonymous  advertisement  and 
secretly  sent  it  to  The  Times,  clubbing  their  pocket- 
money  together  to  pay  for  it.     The  advertisement  was: 

Energetic  Sisters  of  belligerent  ancestry  but  unimpeachable 
sympathies  wish  for  any  sort  of  work  consistent  with  respectability. 
No  objection  to  being  demeaned. 

Anna-Felicitas  inquired  what  that  last  word  meant 
for  it  was  Anna-Rose's  word,  and  Anna-Rose  explained 
that  it  meant  not  minding  things  like  being  housemaids. 
"Yv^hich  we  don't,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "Upper  and 
Under .  I'll  be  Upper,  of  course,  because  I'm  the  eld- 
est." 

Anna-Felicitas  suggested  putting  in  what  it  meant 
then,  for  she  regarded  it  with  some  doubt,  but  Anna- 
Rose,  it  being  her  word,  liked  it,  and  explained  that  it 
put  a  whole  sentence  into  a  nut-shell,  and  wouldn't 
change  it. 

No  one  answered  this  advertisement  except  a  society 
in  London  for  helping  alien  enemies  in  distress. 

"Charity,"  said  Anna-Rose,  turning  up  her  nose. 


24         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"And  fancy  thinking  us  enemies,"  said  Anna-Felici- 

tas,  "Us.     While  mummy "     Her  eyes  filled  with 

tears.  She  kept  them  back,  however,  behind  conven- 
ient long  eye-lashes. 

Then  they  saw  an  advertisement  in  the  front  page 
of  Tlie  Times  that  they  instantly  answered  without  say- 
ing a  word  to  Aunt  Alice.     The  advertisement  was: 

Slightly  wounded  Officer  would  be  glad  to  find  intelligent  and 
interesting  companion  who  can  drive  a  14  h.p.  Humber.  Emolu- 
ments by  arrangement. 

"We'll  tell  him  we're  intelligent  and  interesting," 
said  Anna-Rose,  eagerly. 

"Yes — who  knows  if  we  wouldn't  be  really,  if  we 
were  given  a  chance?"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  quite 
flushed  with  excitement. 

"And  if  he  engages  us  we'll  take  him  on  in  turns,  so 
that  the  emoluments  won't  have  to  be  doubled." 

"Yes — ^because  he  mightn't  like  paying  twice  over." 

"Yes — and  while  the  preliminaries  are  being  settled 
we  could  be  learning  to  drive  Uncle  Arthur's  car." 

"Yes — except  that  it's  a  Daimler,  and  aren't  they 
different?" 

"Yes — ^but  only  about  the  same  difference  as  there 
is  between  a  man  and  a  woman.  A  man  and  a  woman 
are  both  human  beings,  you  know.  And  Daimlers  and 
Humbers  are  both  cars." 

"I  see,"  said  Anna-Felicitas;  but  she  didn't. 

They  wrote  an  enthusiastic  answer  that  very  day. 

The  only  thing  they  were  in  doubt  about,  they  ex- 
plained toward  the  end  of  the  fourth  sheet,  when  they 
had  got  to  politenesses  and  were  requesting  the  slightly 
wounded  officer  to  allow  them  to  express  their  sympathy 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         25 

with  his  wounds,  was  that  they  had  not  yet  had  an 
opportunity  of  driving  a  Humber  ear,  but  that  this 
opportunity,  of  course,  would  be  instantly  provided  by 
his  engaging  them.  Also,  would  he  kindly  tell  them 
if  it  was  a  male  companion  he  desired  to  have,  because 
if  so  it  was  very  unfortunate,  for  neither  of  them  were 
males,  but  quite  the  contrary. 

They  got  no  answer  to  this  for  three  weeks,  and  had 
given  up  all  hope  and  come  to  the  depressing  conclusion 
that  they  must  have  betrayed  their  want  of  intelligence 
and  interestingness  right  away,  when  one  day  a  letter 
came  from  General  Headquarters  in  France,  addressed 
To  Both  the  Miss  Twinklers,  and  it  was  a  long  letter, 
pages  long,  from  the  slightly  wounded  officer,  telling 
them  he  had  been  patched  up  again  and  sent  back  to 
the  front,  and  their  answer  to  his  advertisement  had 
been  forwarded  to  him  there,  and  that  he  had  had 
heaps  of  other  answers  to  it,  and  that  the  one  he  had 
liked  best  of  all  was  theirs;  and  that  some  day  he  hoped 
when  he  was  back  again,  and  able  to  drive  himself,  to 
show  them  how  glorious  motoring  was,  if  their  mother 
would  bring  them, — quick  motoring  in  his  racing  car, 
sixty  miles  an  hour  motoring,  flashing  through  the 
wonders  of  the  New  Forest,  where  he  lived.  And  then 
there  was  a  long  bit  about  what  the  New  Forest  must 
be  looking  like  just  then,  all  quiet  in  the  spring  sunshine, 
with  lovely  dappled  bits  of  shade  underneath  the  big 
beeches,  and  the  heather  just  coming  alive,  and  all 
the  winding  solitary  roads  so  full  of  peace,  so  empty  of 
noise. 

"Write  to  me,  you  two  children,"  said  the  letter  at 
the  end.  "  You've  no  idea  what  it's  like  getting  letters 
from  home  out  here.  Write  and  tell  me  what  you  do 
and  what  the  garden  is  like  these  fine  afternoons.     The 


26         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLLTMBUS 

lilacs  must  be  nearly  clone,  but  I'm  sure  there's  the 
smell  of  them  still  about,  and  I'm  sure  you  have  a 
beautiful  green  close-cut  lawn,  and  tea  is  brought  out 
on  to  it,  and  there's  no  sound,  no  sort  of  sound,  except 
birds,  and  you  two  laughing,  and  I  daresay  a  jolly  dog 
barking  somewhere  just  for  fun  and  not  because  he's 
angry." 

The  letter  was  signed  (Captain)  John  Desmond, 
and  there  was  a  scrawl  in  the  corner  at  the  end :  "  It's 
for  jolly  little  English  kids  like  you  that  we're  fighting. 
God  bless  you.     Write  to  me  again  soon." 

"English  kids  like  us!" 

They  looked  at  each  other.  They  had  not  men- 
tioned tlieir  belligerent  ancestry  in  their  letter.  They 
felt  uncomfortable,  and  as  if  Captain  Desmond  were 
fighting  for  them,  as  it  were,  under  false  pretences. 
They  also  wondered  why  he  should  conclude  they  were 
kids. 

They  wrote  to  him  again,  explaining  that  they  were 
not  exactly  what  could  be  described  as  EngHsh,  but  on 
the  other  hand  neither  were  they  exactly  what  could 
be  described  as  German.  "We  would  be  very  glad 
indeed  if  we  were  really  something,^'  they  added. 

But  after  their  letter  had  been  gone  only  a  few  days 
they  saw  in  the  list  of  casualties  in  The  Times  that 
Captain  John  Desmond  had  been  killed. 

And  then  one  day  the  real  solution  was  revealed, 
and  it  was  revealed  to  Uncle  Arthur  as  he  sat  in  his 
library  on  a  wet  Sunday  morning  considering  his 
troubles  in  detail. 

Like  most  great  ideas  it  sprang  full-fledged  into  being, 
— obvious,  unquestionable,  splendidly  simple, — out  of  a 
trifle.  For,  chancing  to  raise  his  heavy  and  disgusted 
eyes  to  the  bookshelves  in  front  of  him,  they  rested  on 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         27 

one  particular  book,  and  on  the  back  of  this  book  stood 
out  in  big  gilt  letters  the  word 

AMERICA 

There  were  other  words  on  its  back,  but  this  one  alone 
stood  out,  and  it  had  all  the  effect  of  a  revelation. 

There.  That  was  it.  Of  course.  That  was  the 
way  out.  Why  the  devil  hadn't  Alice  thought  of  that  ? 
He  knew  some  Americans;  he  didn't  like  them,  but  he 
knew  them;  and  he  would  write  to  them,  or  Alice  would 
write  to  them,  and  tell  them  the  twins  were  coming. 
He  would  give  the  twins  £200, — damn  it,  nobody  could 
say  that  wasn't  handsome,  especially  in  war-time,  and 
for  a  couple  of  girls  who  had  no  earthly  sort  of  claim 
on  him,  whatever  Alice  might  choose  to  think  they  had 
on  her.  Yet  it  was  such  a  confounded  mixed-up  situa- 
tion that  he  wasn't  at  all  sure  he  wouldn't  come  under 
the  Defence  of  the  Realm  Act,  by  giving  them  money, 
ajs  aiding  the  enemy.  Well,  he  would  risk  that.  He 
would  risk  anything  to  be  rid  of  them.  Ship  'em  off, 
that  was  the  thing  to  do.  They  would  fall  on  their  feet 
right  enough  over  there.  America,  still  swallowed  Ger- 
mans without  making  a  face. 

Uncle  Arthur  reflected  for  a  moment  with  extreme 
disgust  on  the  in.^ensibility  of  the  American  palate. 
"Lost  their  chance,  that's  what  they've  done,"  he  said 
to  himself — for  this  was  1916,  and  America  had  not 
yet  made  her  magnificent  entry  into  the  war — as  he 
had  already  said  to  himself  a  hundred  times.  "Lost 
their  chance  of  coming  in  on  the  side  of  civilization,  and 
helping  sweep  the  world  up  tidy  of  barbarism.  Shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  us,  that's  where  they  ought  to  have 
been.     English-speaking  races — duty  to  the  world " 


28  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

He  then  damned  the  Americans;  but  was  suddenly 
interrupted  by  perceiving  that  if  they  had  been  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  him  and  England  he  wouldn't  have 
been  able  to  send  them  his  wife's  German  nieces  to 
take  care  of.  There  was,  he  conceded,  that  advantage 
resulting  from  their  attitude.  He  could  not,  however, 
concede  any  others. 

At  luncheon  he  was  very  nearly  gay.  It  was  terrible 
to  see  Uncle  Arthur  very  nearly  gay,  and  both  his  wife 
and  the  twins  were  most  uncomfortable.  "I  wonder 
what's  the  matter  now,"  sighed  Aunt  Alice  to  herself, 
as  she  nervously  crumbled  her  toast. 

It  could  mean  nothing  good,  Arthur  in  such  spirits  on 
a  wet  Sunday,  when  he  hadn't  been  able  to  get  his  golf 
and  the  cook  had  overdone  the  joint. 


CHAPTER  m 

^ND  so,  on  a  late  September  afternoon,  the  St, 

Zjk  Luke,  sliding  away  from  her  moorings,  relieved 
X    JL  Uncle  Arthur  of  his  burden. 

It  was  final  this  time,  for  the  two  alien  enemies  once 
out  of  it  would  not  be  let  into  England  again  till  after 
the  war.  The  enemies  themselves  knew  it  was  final; 
and  the  same  knowledge  that  made  Uncle  Arthur  feel 
so  pleasant  as  he  walked  home  across  his  park  from  golf 
to  tea  that  for  a  moment  he  was  actually  of  a  mind  to 
kiss  Aunt  Alice  when  he  got  in,  and  perhaps  even  ad- 
dress her  in  the  language  of  resuscitated  passion,  which 
in  Uncle  Arthur's  mouth  was  Old  Girl, — ^an  idea  he 
abandoned,  however,  in  case  it  should  make  her  self- 
satisfied  and  tiresome — the  same  knowledge  that  pro- 
duced these  amiable  effects  in  Uncle  Arthur,  made  his 
alien  nieces  cling  very  close  together  as  they  leaned 
over  the  side  of  the  Si,  Luke  hungrily  watching  the 
people  on  the  wharf. 

For  they  loved  England.  They  loved  it  with  the 
love  of  youth  whose  enthusiasms  have  been  led  by  an 
adored  teacher  always  in  one  direction.  And  they  were 
leaving  that  adored  teacher,  their  mother,  in  England . 
It  seemed  like  losing  her  a  second  time  to  go  away,  so 
far  away,  and  leave  her  there.  It  was  nonsense,  they 
knew,  to  feel  like  that.  She  was  with  them  just  the 
same;  wherever  they  went  now  she  would  be  with 
them,  and  they  could  hear  her  saying  at  that  very  mo- 
ment, "Little  darlings,  don't  cry     .     .     ."     But  it  was 

29 


30         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

a  gloomy,  drizzling  afternoon,  the  sort  of  afternoon  any- 
body might  be  expected  to  cry  on,  and  not  one  of  the 
people  waving  handkerchiefs  were  waving  handker- 
chiefs to  them. 

"We  ought  to  have  hired  somebody,"  thought  Anna- 
Rose,  eyeing  the  handkerchiefs  with  miserable  Httle 
eyes. 

"I  believe  I've  gone  and  caught  a  cold,"  remarked 
Anna-Felicitas  in  her  gentle,  staid  voice,  for  she  was 
having  a  good  deal  of  bother  with  her  eyes  and  her  nose, 
and  could  no  longer  conceal  the  fact  that  she  was  sniffing. 

Anna-Rose  discreetly  didn't  look  at  her.  Then  she 
suddenly  whipped  out  her  handkerchief  and  waved  it 
violently. 

Anna-Felicitas  forgot  her  eyes  and  nose  and  craned 
her  head  forward.  "^Vho  are  you  waving  to?"  she 
asked,  astonished. 

"Good-bye!"  cried  Anna-Rose,  waving,  "Good- 
bye !     Good-bye ! ' ' 

"Who?  Where?  Who  are  you  talking  to?"  asked 
Anna-Felicitas.     "Has  any  one  come  to  see  us  off?'* 

"Good-bye!     Good-bye!"  cried  Anna-Rose. 

The  figures  on  the  wharf  were  getting  smaller,  but 
not  until  they  had  faded  into  a  blur  did  Anna-Rose 
leave  off  waving.  Then  she  turned  round  and  put 
her  arm  through  Anna-Felicitas's  and  held  on  to  her 
very  tight  for  a  minute. 

"There  wasn't  anybody,"  she  said.  "Of  course 
there  wasn't.  But  do  you  suppose  I  was  going  to  have 
us  looking  like  people  who  aren't  seen  off?" 

And  she  drew  Anna-Felicitas  away  to  the  chairs, 
and  when  they  were  safely  in  them  and  rolled  up  to 

their  chins  in  the  rug,  she  added,  "That  man "  and 

then  stoppved. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         31 

"Whatman?" 

"Standing  just  behind  us " 


"Was  there  a  man?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  who 
never  saw  men  any  more  than  she,  in  her  brief  career 
at  the  hospital,  had  seen  pails. 

"Yes.  Looking  as  if  in  another  moment  he'd  be 
sorry^  for  us,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Sorry  for  us!"  repeated  Anna-Felicitas,  roused  to 
indignation. 

"Yes.     Did  you  ever?" 

Anna-Felicitas  said,  with  a  great  deal  of  energy 
while  she  put  her  handkerchief  finally  and  sternly 
away,  that  she  didn't  ever;  and  after  a  pause  Anna- 
Rose,  remembering  one  of  her  many  new  responsibilities 
and  anxieties — she  had  so  many  that  sometimes  for  a 
time  she  didn't  remember  some  of  them — ^turned  her 
head  to  Anna-Felicitas,  and  fixing  a  worried  eye  on  her 
said,  "You  won't  go  forgetting  your  Bible,  will  you, 
AimaF.?" 

"My  Bible?"  repeated  Anna-Felicitas,  looldng  blanlc. 

"Your  German  Bible.  The  bit  about  wenn  die  hosen 
Buhen  locken,  sofolge  sie  nicht," 

Anna-FeHcitas  continued  to  look  blank,  but  Anna- 
Rose  with  a  troubled  brow  said  again,  "You  won't  go 
and  forget  that,  will  you,  Anna  F.?" 

For  Anna-Felicitas  was  very  pretty.  In  most 
people's  eyes  she  was  very  pretty,  but  in  Anna-Rose's 
she  was  the  most  exquisite  creature  God  had  yet  suc- 
ceeded in  turning  out.  Anna-Rose  concealed  this 
conviction  from  her.  She  wouldn't  have  told  her  for 
worlds.  She  considered  it  wouldn't  have  been  at  all 
good  for  her;  and  she  had,  up. to  this,  and  ever  since 
they  could  both  remember,  jeered  in  a  thoroughly 
sisterly  fashion  at  her  defects,  concentrating  particu- 


32         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

larly  on  her  nose,  on  her  leanness,  and  on  the  way,  unless 
constantly  reminded  not  to,  she  drooped. 

But  Anna-Rose  secretly  considered  that  the  same 
nose  that  on  her  own  face  made  no  sort  of  a  show  at 
all,  directly  it  got  on  to  Anna-Felicitas's  somehow  was 
the  dearest  nose;  and  that  her  leanness  was  lovely, — 
the  same  sort  of  slender  grace  her  mother  had  had  in 
the  days  before  the  heart-breaking  emaciation  that  was 
its  last  phase;  and  that  her  head  was  set  so  charmingly 
on  her  neck  that  when  she  drooped  and  forgot  her 
father's  constant  injunction  to  sit  up, — "For,"  had  said 
her  father  at  monotonously  regular  intervals,  "a  maiden 
should  be  as  straight  as  a  fir-tree," — she  only  seemed 
to  fall  into  even  more  attractive  lines  than  when  she 
didn't.  And  now  that  Anna-Rose  alone  had  the  charge 
of  looking  after  this  abstracted  and  so  charming  younger 
sister,  she  felt  it  her  duty  somehow  to  convey  to  her 
while  tactfully  avoiding  putting  ideas  into  the  poor 
child's  head  which  might  make  her  conceited,  that  it 
behoved  her  to  conduct  herself  with  discretion. 

But  she  found  tact  a  ticklish  thing,  the  most  difficult 
thing  of  all  to  handle  successfully;  and  on  this  occasion 
hers  was  so  elaborate,  and  so  carefully  wrapped  up  in 
Scriptural  language,  and  German  Scripture  at  that, 
that  Anna-Felicitas's  slow  mind  didn't  succeed  in  dis- 
entangling her  meaning,  and  after  a  space  of  staring 
at  her  with  a  mild  inquiry  in  her  eyes,  she  decided  that 
perhaps  she  hadn't  got  one.  She  was  much  too  polite 
though,  to  say  so,  and  they  sat  in  silence  under  the  rug 
till  the  St.  Luke  whistled  and  stopped,  and  Anna-Rose 
began  hastily  to  make  conversation  about  Christopher 
and  Columbus. 

She  was  ashamed  of  having  shown  so  much  of  her 
woe  at  leaving  England.     She  hoped  Anna-Felicitas 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         33 

hadn't  noticed.  She  certainly  wasn't  going  on  like 
that.  When  the  St.  Luke  whistled,  she  was  ashamed 
that  it  wasn't  only  Anna-Felicitas  who  jumped.  And 
the  amount  of  brightness  she  put  into  her  voice  when 
she  told  Anna-Felicitas  it  was  pleasant  to  go  and 
discover  America  was  such  that  that  young  lady,  who 
if  slow  was  sure,  said  to  herself,  "Poor  little  Anna-R., 
she's  really  taking  it  dreadfully  to  heart." 

The  St.  Luke  was  only  dropping  anchor  for  the  night 
in  the  Mersey,  and  would  go  on  at  daybreak.  They 
gathered  this  from  the  talk  of  passengers  walking  up 
and  down  the  deck  in  twos  and  threes  and  passing  and 
repassing  the  chairs  containing  the  silent  figures  with 
the  round  heads  that  might  be  either  the  heads  of 
boys  or  of  girls,  and  they  were  greatly  relieved  to  think 
they  wouldn't  have  to  begin  and  be  sea-sick  for  some 
hours  yet.  "So  couldn't  we  walk  about  a  little?" 
suggested  Anna-Felicitas,  who  was  already  stiff  from 
sitting  on  the  hard  cane  chair. 

But  Aunt  Alice  had  told  them  that  the  thing  to  do 
on  board  a  ship  if  they  wished,  as  she  was  sure  they  did, 
not  only  to  avoid  being  sick  but  also  conspicuous,  was 
to  sit  down  in  chairs  the  moment  the  ship  got  under 
way,  and  not  move  out  of  them  till  it  stopped  again. 
"Or,  at  least,  as  rarely  as  possible,"  amended  Aunt 
AHce,  who  had  never  herself  been  further  on  a  ship 
than  to  Calais,  but  recognized  that  it  might  be  diffi- 
cult to  avoid  moving  sooner  or  later  if  ft  was  New 
York  you  were  going  to.  "Two  such  young  girls 
travelliug  alone  should  be  seen  as  seldom  as  ever  you  can 
manage.  Your  Uncle  is  sending  you  second-class  for 
that  very  reason,  because  it  is  so  much  less  conspicu- 
ous." 

It  was  also  very  much  less  expensive,  and  Uncle 


34  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Arthur's  generosities  were  of  the  kind  that  suddenly 
grow  impatient  and  leave  off.  Just  as  in  eating  he  was, 
as  he  said,  for  plain  roast  and  boiled,  and  messes  be 
damned,  so  in  benefactions  he  was  for  lump  sums  and 
done  with  it;  and  the  extras,  the  driblets,  the  here  a 
little  and  there  a  little  that  were  necessary,  or  were 
alleged  by  Aunt  Alice  to  be  necessary,  before  he  finally 
got  rid  of  those  blasted  twins,  annoyed  him  so  pro- 
foundly that  when  it  came  to  taking  their  passage  he 
could  hardly  be  got  not  to  send  them  in  the  steerage. 
This  was  too  much,  however,  for  Aunt  Alice,  whose 
maid  was  going  with  them  as  far  as  Euston  and  there- 
fore would  know  what  sort  of  tickets  they  had,  and 
she  insisted  with  such  quiet  obstinacy  that  they  should 
be  sent  first-class  that  Uncle  Arthur  at  last  split  the 
difference  and  consented  to  make  it  second.  To  her 
maid  Aunt  Alice  also  explained  that  second-class  was 
less  conspicuous. 

Anna-Rose,  mindful  of  Aunt  Alice's  words,  hesitated 
as  to  the  wisdom  of  walking  about  and  beginning  to  be 
conspicuous  already,  but  she  too  was  stiff,  and  anything 
the  matter  with  one's  body  has  a  wonderful  effect,  as 
she  had  ah-eady  in  her  brief  career  had  numerous  occa- 
sions to  observe,  in  doing  away  with  prudent  deter- 
minations. So,  after  cautiously  looking  round  the 
corners  to  see  if  the  man  who  was  on  the  verge  of  being 
sorry  for  them  were  nowhere  in  sight,  they  walked  up 
and  down  the  damp,  dark  deck;  and  the  motionlessness, 
and  silence,  and  mist  gave  them  a  sensation  of  being 
hung  mid-air  in  some  strange  empty  Hades  between 
two  worlds. 

Far  down  below  there  was  a  faint  splash  every  now 
and  then  against  the  side  of  the  St.  Luke  when  some 
other  steamer,  invisible  in  the  mist,  felt  her  way  slowly 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  35 

by.  Out  ahead  lay  the  sea,  the  immense  uneasy  sea 
that  was  to  last  ten  days  and  nights  before  they  got 
to  the  other  side,  hour  after  hour  of  it,  hour  after  hour 
of  tossing  across  it  further  and  further  away;  and  for- 
lorn and  ghostly  as  the  ship  felt,  it  yet,  because  on 
either  side  of  it  were  still  the  shores  of  England,  didn't 
seem  as  forlorn  and  ghostly  as  the  unknown  land  they 
were  bound  for.  For  suppose,  Anna-Felicitas  inquired 
of  Anna-Rose,  who  had  been  privately  asking  herself 
the  same  thing,  America  didn't  like  them?  Supf>ose 
the  same  sort  of  difficulties  were  waiting  for  them  over 
there  that  had  dogged  their  footsteps  in  England? 

"First  of  all,"  said  Anna-Rose  promptly,  for  she 
prided  herself  on  the  readiness  and  clearness  of  her 
explanations,  "America  will  like  us,  because  I  don't 
see  why  it  shouldn't.  We're  going  over  to  it  in  exactly 
the  same  pleasant  spirit,  Anna-F.,  — ^and  don't  you  go 
forgetting  it  and  showing  your  disagreeable  side — ^that 
the  dove  was  in  when  it  flew  across  the  waters  to  the 
ark,  and  with  olive  branches  in  our  beaks  just  the  same 
as  the  dove's,  only  they're  those  two  letters  to  Uncle 
Arthur's  friends." 

"But  do  you  think  Uncle  Arthur's  friends "  be- 
gan Anna-Felicitas,  who  had  great  doubts  as  to  every- 
thing connected  with  Uncle  Arthur. 

"And  secondly,"  continued  Anna-Rose  a  little 
louder,  for  she  wasn't  going  to  be  interrupted,  and 
having  been  asked  a  question  liked  to  give  all  the  in- 
formation in  her  power,  "secondly,  America  is  the 
greatest  of  the  neutrals  except  the  Hebe  Gott,  and  is 
bound  particularly  to  prize  us  because  we're  so  unusually 
and  peculiarly  neutral.  What  ever  was  more  neutral 
than  you  and  me?  We're  neither  one  thing  nor  the 
other,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  we're  both." 


36  CHraSTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Aima-Felicitas  remarked  that  it  sounded  rather  as 
if  they  were  the  Athanasian  Creed. 

"And  thirdly,"  went  on  Anna-Rose,  waving  this 
aside,  "there's  £200  waiting  for  us  over  there,  which  is 
a  very  nice  warm  thing  to  think  of.  We  never  had 
£200  waiting  for  us  anywhere  in  our  lives  before,  did 
we, — so  you  remember  that,  and  don't  get  grumbling.'* 

Anna-Felicitas  mildly  said  that  she  wasn't  grumbling 
but  that  she  couldn't  help  thinking  what  a  great  deal 
depended  on  the  goodwill  of  Uncle  Arthur's  friends, 
and  wished  it  had  been  Aunt  Alice's  friends  they  had 
letters  to  instead,  because  Aunt  Alice's  friends  were 
more  likely  to  like  her. 

Anna-Rose  rebuked  her,  and  said  that  the  proper 
spirit  in  which  to  start  on  a  great  adventure  was  one 
of  faith  and  enthusiasm,  and  that  one  didn't  have 
doubts. 

Anna-Felicitas  said  she  hadn't  any  doubts  really, 
but  that  she  was  very  hungry,  not  having  had  anything 
that  could  be  called  a  meal  since  breakfast,  and  that 
she  felt  like  the  sheep  in  "Lycidas,"  the  hungry  ones  who 
looked  up  and  were  not  fed,  and  she  quoted  the  lines 
in  case  Anna-Rose  didn't  recollect  them  (which  Anna- 
Rose  deplored,  for  she  knew  the  lines  by  heart,  and  if 
there  was  any  quoting  to  be  done  liked  to  do  it  herself) , 
and  said  she  felt  just  like  that, — "Empty,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  "and  yet  swollen.  When  do  you  suppose 
people  have  food  on  board  ships?  I  don't  believe  we'd 
mind  nearly  so  much  about — oh  well,  about  leaving 
England,  if  it  was  after  dinner." 

"I'm  not  minding  leaving  England,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  quickly.     "At  least,  not  more  than's  just  proper." 

"Oh,  no  more  am  I,  of  course,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
airily.     "Except  what's  proper." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         37 

"And  even  if  we  were  feeling  it  dreadfully,''  said 
Anna-Rose,  with  a  little  catch  in  her  voice,  "which, 
of  course,  we're  not,  dinner  wouldn't  make  any  differ- 
ence.    Dinner  doesn't  alter  fundamentals." 

"But  it  helps  one  to  bear  them,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Bear!"  repeated  Anna-Rose,  her  chin  in  the  air. 
"We  haven't  got  much  to  bear.  Don't  let  me  hear  you 
talk  of  bearing  things,  Anna-F." 

"I  won't  after  dinner,"  promised  Anna-Felicitas. 

They  thought  perhaps  they  had  better  ask  somebody 
whether  there  wouldn't  soon  be  something  to  eat,  but 
the  other  passengers  had  all  disappeared.  They  were 
by  themselves  on  the  gloomy  deck,  and  there  were  no 
lights.  The  row  of  cabin  windows  along  the  wall  were 
closely  shuttered,  and  the  door  they  had  come  through 
when  first  they  came  on  deck  was  shut  too,  and  they 
couldn't  find  it  in  the  dark.  It  seemed  so  odd  to  be 
feeling  along  a  wall  for  a  door  they  knew  was  there 
and  not  be  able  to  find  it,  that  they  began  to  laugh; 
and  the  undiscoverable  door  cheered  them  up  more 
than  anything  that  had  happened  since  seeing  the  last 
of  Uncle  Arthur. 

"It's  like  a  game,"  said  Anna-Rose,  patting  her  hands 
softly  and  vainly  along  the  wall  beneath  the  shuttered 
windows. 

"It's  like  something  in  'Alice  in  Wonderland,' "  said 
Anna-Felicitas,  following  in  her  tracks. 

A  figure  loomed  through  the  mist  and  came  toward 
them.  They  left  off  patting,  and  stiffened  into  straight 
and  motionless  dignity  against  the  wall  till  it  should 
have  passed.  But  it  didn't  pass.  It  was  a  male 
figure  in  a  peaked  cap,  probably  a  steward,  they 
thought,  and  it  stopped  in  front  of  them  and  said  in 
an  American  voice,  "Hello." 


38         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose  cast  rapidly  about  in  her  mind  for  the 
proper  form  of  reply  to  Hello. 

Anna-Felicitas,  instinctively  responsive  to  example, 
murmured  "Hello"  back  again. 

Anna-Rose,  feeling  sure  that  nobody  ought  to  say 
just  Hello  to  people  they  had  never  seen  before,  and 
that  Aimt  Alice  would  think  they  had  brought  it  on 
themselves  by  being  conspicuous,  decided  that  perhaps 
"Good-evening"  would  regulate  the  situation,  and 
said  it. 

"You  ought  to  be  at  dinner,"  said  the  man,  taking 
no  notice  of  this. 

"That's  what  we  think,"  agreed  Anna-Fehcitas 
earnestly. 

"Can  you  please  tell  us  how  to  get  there?"  asked 
Anna-Rose,  still  distant,  but  polite,  for  she  too  very 
much  wanted  to  know. 

"But  dont  tell  us  to  ask  the  Captain,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  even  more  earnestly. 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "because  we  won't." 

The  man  laughed.  "Come  right  along  with  me," 
he  said,  striding  on;  and  they  followed  him  as  obediently 
as  though  such  persons  as  possible  hose  Buhen  didn't 
exist. 

"First  voyage  I  guess,"  said  the  man  over  his 
shoulder. 

"Yes,"  said  the  twins  a  little  breathlessly,  for  the 
man's  legs  were  long  and  they  could  hardly  keep  up 
with  him. 

"  English .f^"  said  the  man. 

"Ye — es,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"That's  to  say,  practically,"  panted  the  conscientious 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"What  say?"  said  the  man,  still  striding  on. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         39 

"I  said,"  Anna-Felicitas  endeavoured  to  explain, 
hurrying  breathlessly  after  him  so  as  to  keep  within 
reach  of  his  ear,  "practically." 

**Ah,"  said  the  man;  and  after  a  silence,  broken  only 
by  the  pantings  for  breath  of  the  twins,  he  added: 
"Mother  with  you?" 

They  didn't  say  anything  to  that,  it  seemed  such  a 
dreadful  question  to  have  to  answer,  and  luckily  he 
didn't  rei>eat  it,  but,  having  got  to  the  door  they  had 
been  searching  for,  opvened  it  and  stepped  into  the 
bright  light  inside,  and  putting  out  his  arm  behind  him 
pulled  them  in  one  after  the  other  over  the  high  wooden 
door-frame. 

Inside  was  the  same  stewardess  they  had  seen  earlier 
in  the  afternoon,  engaged  in  heatedly  describing  what 
sounded  like  grievances  to  an  official  in  buttons,  who 
seemed  indifferent.  She  stopped  suddenly  when  the 
man  appeared,  and  the  official  took  his  hands  out  of  his 
pockets  and  became  alert  and  attentive,  and  the  stew- 
ardess hastily  picked  up  a  tray  she  had  set  down  and 
began  to  move  away  along  a  passage. 

The  man,  however,  briefly  called  "Hi,"  and  she 
turned  round  and  came  back  even  more  quickly  than 
she  had  tried  to  go. 

"You  see,"  explained  Anna-Rose  in  a  pleased  whisper 
to  Anna-Felicitas,  "it's  Hi  she  answers  to." 

"Yes,"  agreed  Anna-Felicitas.  "It's  waste  of  good 
circumlocutions  to  throw  them  away  on  her." 

"Show  these  young  ladies  the  dining-room,"  said  the 
man. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  the  stewardess,  as  polite  as  you 
please. 

He  nodded  to  them  with  a  smile  that  developed  for 
some  reason  into  a  laugh,  and  turned  away  and  beck- 


140  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

oned  to  the  official  to  follow  him,  and  went  out  again 
into  the  night. 

"^Vho  was  that  nice  man?"  inquired  Anna-Rose, 
following  the  stewardess  down  a  broad  flight  of  stairs 
that  smelt  of  india-rubber  and  machine-oil  and  cooking 
all  mixed  up  together. 

"And  please,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  with  mild  severity, 
"don't  tell  us  to  ask  the  Captain,  because  we  really  do 
know  better  than  that." 

"I  thought  you  must  be  relations,"  said  the  stew- 
ardess. 

"We  are,"  said  Ajma-Rose.     "We're  twins." 

The  stewardess  stared.  "Twins  what  of.^"  ;she 
asked. 

"What  oi?''  echoed  Amia-Rose.  "Why,  of  each 
other,  of  course." 

"I  meant  relations  of  the  Captain's,"  said  the 
stewardess  shortly,  eyeing  them  with  more  disfavour 
than  ever. 

"You  seem  to  have  the  Captain  greatly  on  your 
mind,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "He  is  no  relation  of 
ours." 

"You're  not  even  friends,  then.^^"  asked  the  stew- 
ardess, pausing  to  stare  round  at  them  at  a  turn  in  the 
stairs  as  they  followed  her  down  arm-in-arm. 

"Of  course  we're  friends,"  said  Anna-Rose  with 
some  heat.     "Do  you  suppose  we  quarrel?" 

"No,  I  didn't  suppose  you  quarrelled  with  the 
Captain,"  said  the  stewardess  tartly.  "Not  on  board 
this  ship  anyway." 

She  didn't  know  which  of  the  two  she  disliked  most, 
the  short  girl  or  the  long  girl. 

"You  seem  to  be  greatly  obsessed  by  the  Captain," 
said  Anna-Felicitas  gently. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         41 

"Obsessed!"  repeated  the  stewardess,  tossing  her 
head.  She  was  unacquainted  with  the  word,  but  in- 
stantly suspected  it  of  containing  a  reflection  on  her 
respectabihty.  "I've  been  a  widow  off  and  on  for 
ten  years  now,"  she  said  angrily,  "and  I  guess  it  would 
take  more  than  even  the  Captain  to  obsess  me." 

They  had  reached  the  glass  doors  leading  into  the 
dining-room,  and  the  stewardess,  having  carried  out 
her  orders,  paused  before  indignantly  leaving  them  and 
going  upstairs  again  to  say,  "If  you're  friends,  what  do 
you  want  to  know  his  name  for,  then.^^" 

"Whose  name-f^"  asked  Anna-Felicitas. 

"The  Captain's,"  said  the  stewardess. 

"We  don't  want  to  know  the  Captain's  name,"  said 
Anna-Fehcitas  patiently.  "We  don't  want  to  know 
anything  about  the  Captain." 

"Then "  began  the  stewardess.     She  restrained 

herself,  however,  and  merely  bitterly  remarking: 
"That  gentleman  was  the  Captain,"  went  upstairs  and 
left  them. 

Anna-Rose  was  the  first  to  recover.  "You  see  we 
took  your  advice,"  she  called  up  after  her,  trying  to 
soften  her  heart,  for  it  was  evident  that  for  some  reason 
her  heart  was  hardened,  by  flattery.  "You  told  us  to 
ask  the  Captain." 


CHAPTER  IV 

IN  THEIR  berths  that  night  before  they  went  to 
sleep,  it  occurred  to  them  that  perhaps  what  was 
the  matter  with  the  stewardess  was  that  she  needed 
a  tip.  At  first,  with  their  recent  experiences  fi-esh 
in  their  minds,  they  thought  that  she  was  probably 
passionately  pro-Ally,  and  had  already  detected  all 
those  Junkers  in  their  past  and  accordingly  couldn't 
endure  them.  Then  they  remembered  how  Aunt  Alice 
had  said,  "You  will  have  to  give  your  stewardess  a 
little  something." 

This  had  greatly  perturbed  them  at  the  time,  for 
up  to  then  they  had  been  in  the  easy  position  of  the 
tipped  rather  than  the  tippers,  and  anyhow  they  liad 
no  idea  what  one  gave  stewardesses.  Neither,  it 
appeared,  had  Aunt  Alice;  for,  on  being  questioned,  she 
said  vaguely  that  as  it  was  an  American  boat  tliey  were 
going  on  she  supposed  it  would  have  to  be  American 
money,  which  was  dollars,  and  she  didn't  know  much 
about  dollars  except  that  you  divided  them  by  four  and 
multiplied  them  by  ^ve,  or  else  it  was  the  other  way 
about;  and  when,  feeling  still  uninformed,  they  had 
begged  her  to  tell  them  why  one  did  that,  she  said  it 
was  the  quickest  way  of  finding  out  what  a  dollar  really 
was,  and  would  they  mind  not  talking  any  more  for  a 
little  while  because  her  head  ached. 

The  tips  they  had  seen  administered  during  their 
short  lives  had  all  been  given  at  the  end  of  things,  not 
at  the  beginning;  but  Americans,  Aunt  Alice  told  them, 

4£ 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         43 

were  in  some  respects,  in  spite  of  their  talking  English, 
different,  and  perhaps  they  were  different  just  on  this 
point  and  liked  to  be  tipped  at  both  ends.  Anna-Rose 
wanted  to  crane  out  her  head  and  call  up  to  Anna- 
Felicitas  and  ask  her  whether  she  didn't  think  that 
might  be  so,  but  was  afraid  of  disturbing  the  people 
in  the  opp>osite  berths. 

Anna-Felicitas  was  in  the  top  berth  on  their  side  of 
the  cabin,  and  Anna-Rose  as  the  elder  and  accordingly 
as  she  explained  to  Anna-Felicitas,  needing  more  com- 
fort, in  the  lower  one.  On  the  opposite  side  were  two 
similar  berths,  each  containing  as  Anna-Fehcitas  whis- 
pered after  peeping  cautiously  through  their  closed 
curtains, — for  at  first  on  coming  in  after  dinner  to  go 
to  bed  the  cabin  seemed  empty,  except  for  inanimate 
things,  like  clothes  hanging  up  and  an  immense  smell, — 
its  human  freight.  They  were  awed  by  this  discovery, 
for  the  human  freight  was  motionless  and  speechless, 
and  yet  made  none  of  the  noises  suggesting  sleep. 

They  unpacked  and  undressed  as  silently  and  quickly 
as  possible,  but  it  was  very  difficult,  for  there  seemed 
to  be  no  room  for  anything,  not  even  for  themselves. 
Every  now  and  then  they  glanced  a  little  uneasily  at 
the  closed  curtains,  which  bulged,  and  sniffed  cautiously 
and  delicately,  trying  to  decide  what  the  smell  exactly 
was.  It  appeared  to  be  a  mixture  of  the  sauce  one  had 
mth  plum  pudding  at  Christmas,  and  German  bed- 
rooms in  the  morning.  It  was  a  smell  they  didn't  like 
the  idea  of  sleeping  with,  but  they  saw  no  way  of  getting 
air.  They  thought  of  ringing  for  the  stewardess  and 
asking  her  to  open  a  window,  though  they  could  see  no 
window,  but  came  to  the  conclusion  it  was  better  not 
to  stir  her  up;  not  yet,  at  least,  not  till  they  had  correctly 
diagnosed  what  was  the  matter  with  her.    They  said 


44  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

nothing  out  loud,  for  fear  of  disturbing  whatever  it  was 
behind  the  curtains,  but  they  knew  what  each  was 
thinking,  for  one  isn't,  as  they  had  long  ago  found  out, 
a  twin  for  nothing. 

There  was  a  slight  scuffle  before  Anna-Felicitas  was 
safely  hoisted  up  into  her  berth,  her  legs  hanging  help- 
lessly dow^n  for  some  time  after  the  rest  of  her  was  in  it, 
and  Anna-Rose,  who  had  already  neatly  inserted  herself 
into  her  own  berth,  after  watching  these  legs  in  silence 
and  fighting  a  desire  to  give  them  a  tug  and  see  what 
would  happen,  had  to  get  out  at  last  on  hearing  Anna- 
Felicitas  begin  to  make  sounds  up  there  as  though  she 
were  choking,  and  push  them  up  in  after  her.  Her 
head  was  then  on  a  level  with  Anna-Felicitas's  berth, 
and  she  could  see  how  Anna-Felicitas,  having  got  her 
legs  again,  didn't  attempt  to  do  anything  with  them  in 
the  way  of  orderly  arrangement  beneath  the  blankets, 
but  lay  huddled  in  an  irregular  heap,  screwing  her  eyes 
up  very  tight  and  stuffing  one  of  her  pigtails  into  her 
mouth,  and  evidently  struggling  with  what  appeared 
to  be  an  attack  of  immoderate  and  ill-timed  mirth. 

Anna-Rose  observed  her  for  a  moment  in  silence, 
then  was  suddenly  seized  herself  with  a  dreadful  desire 
to  laugh,  and  with  a  hasty  glance  round  at  the  bulging 
curtains  scrambled  back  into  her  own  berth  and  pulled 
the  sheet  over  her  mouth. 

She  was  sobering  herself  by  going  over  her  different 
responsibilities,  checking  them  off  on  her  fingers,^ — ^the 
two  five-pound  notes  under  her  pillow  for  extra  expenses 
till  they  were  united  in  New  York  to  their  capital,  the 
tickets,  the  passports,  and  Anna-Felicitas, — when  two 
thick  fair  pigtails  appeared  dangling  over  the  edge  of 
her  berth,  followed  by  Anna-Felicitas's  head. 
:     "You've  forgotten  to  turn  out  the  light,"  whispered 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         45 

Anna-Felicitas,  her  eyelashes  still  wet  from  her  late 
attack;  and  stretching  her  neck  still  further  down  till 
her  face  was  scarlet  with  the  effort  and  the  blood  rushing 
into  it,  she  expressed  a  conviction  to  Anna-Rose  that 
the  human  freight  behind  the  curtains,  judging  from 
the  suspicious  negativeness  of  its  behaviour,  had  no 
business  in  their  cabin  at  all  and  was  really  stowaways. 

"German  stowaways,"  added  Anna-Felicitas,  nod- 
ding her  head  emphatically,  which  was  very  skilful 
of  her,  thought  Anna-Rose,  considering  that  it  was 
upside  down.  ^'German  stowaways,"  whispered  Anna- 
Felicitas,  sniffing  expressively  though  cautiously. 

Anna-Rose  raised  herself  on  her  elbows  and  stared 
across  at  the  bulging  curtains.  They  certainly  were 
very  motionless  and  much  curved.  In  spite  of  herself 
her  flesh  began  to  creep  a  little. 

"They're  men,"  whispered  Anna-Felicitas,  now  dan- 
gerously congested.     "Stowaways  are." 

There  had  been  no  one  in  the  cabin  when  first  they 
came  on  board  and  took  their  things  down,  and  they 
hadn't  been  in  it  since  till  they  came  to  bed. 

*' German  men,"  whispered  Anna-Felicitas,  again 
with  a  delicate  expressive  sniff. 

"Nonsense,"  whispered  Anna-Rose,  stoutly.  "Men 
never  come  into  ladies'  cabins.  And  there's  skirts  on 
the  hooks." 

"Disguise,"  whispered  Anna-Felicitas,  nodding  again. 
"Spies'  disguise."  She  seemed  quite  to  be  enjoying 
her  own  horrible  suggestions. 

"  Take  your  head  back  into  the  berth,"  ordered  Anna- 
Rose  quickly,  for  Anna-Felicitas  seemed  to  be  on  the 
very  brink  of  an  apoplectic  fit. 

Anna-Felicitas,  who  was  herself  beginning  to  feel  a 
little  inconvenienced,  obeyed,  and  was  thrilled  to  see 


46         CHEISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose  presently  very  cautiously  emerge  from 
underneath  her  and  on  her  bare  feet  creep  across  to  the 
opfMDsite  side.  She  knew  her  to  be  valiant  to  reckless- 
ness. She  sat  up  to  watch,  her  eyes  round  with  in- 
terest. 

Anna-Rose  didn't  go  straight  across,  but  proceeded 
slowly,  with  several  pauses,  to  direct  her  steps  toward 
the  pillow-end  of  the  berths.  Having  got  there  she 
stood  still  a  moment  listening,  and  then  putting  a  care- 
ful jBnger  between  the  curtain  of  the  lower  berth  and 
its  frame,  drew  it  the  smallest  crack  aside  and  peeped  in. 

Instantly  she  started  back,  letting  go  the  curtain. 
"I  beg  your  pardon,"  she  said  out  loud,  turning  very 
red.     "I— I  thought " 

Anna-Felicitas,  attentive  in  her  berth,  felt  a  cold 
thrill  rush  down  her  back.  No  sound  came  from  the 
berth  on  the  other  side  any  more  than  before  the  raid 
on  it,  and  Anna-Rose  returned  quicker  tlian  she  had 
gone.  She  just  stopped  on  the  way  to  switch  off  the 
light,  and  then  felt  along  the  edge  of  Anna-Felicitas's 
berth  till  she  got  to  her  head,  and  pulling  it  near  her 
by  its  left  pigtail  whispered  with  her  mouth  close  to  its 
left  ear,  "Wide  awake.  Watching  me  all  the  time. 
Not  a  man.     Fat." 

And  she  crawled  into  her  berth  feeling  unnerved. 


r  I  "^ 


CHAPTER  V 

"^HE  lady  in  the  opposite  berth  was  German,  and 
so  was  the  lady  in  the  berth  above  her.  Their 
husbands  were  American,  but  that  didn't  make 
them  less  Grerman.  Nothing  ever  makes  a  German  less 
German,  Anna-Rose  explained  to  Anna-Felieitas. 

** Except,"  replied  Anna-Felicitas,  "a  judicious  dilu- 
tion of  their  blood  by  the  right  kind  of  mother." 

"Yes/'  said  Anna-Rose.  "Only  to  be  found  in 
England." 

This  conversation  didn't  take  place  till  the  afternoon 
of  the  next  day,  by  which  time  Anna-Felicitas  already 
knew  about  the  human  freight  being  Germans,  for  one 
of  their  own  submarines  came  after  the  St,  Luke  and 
no  one  was  quite  so  loud  in  expression  of  terror  and 
dislike  as  the  two  Germans. 

They  demanded  to  be  saved  first,  on  the  ground  that 
they  were  Germans.  They  repudiated  their  husbands, 
and  said  marriage  was  nothing  compared  to  how  one 
had  been  born.  The  curtains  of  their  berths,  till  then 
so  carefully  closed,  suddenly  yawned  open,  and  the 
berths  gave  up  their  contents  just  as  if,  Anna-FeHcitas 
remarked  afterwards  to  Anna-Rose,  it  was  the  resurrec- 
tion and  the  berths  were  riven  sepulchres  chucking  up 
their  dead. 

This  happened  at  ten  o'clock  the  next  morning  when 
the  St.  Luke  was  pitching  about  off  the  southwest 
coast  of  Ireland.  The  twins,  waking  about  seven,  found 
with  a  pained  surprise  that  they  were  not  where  they 

47 


48  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

had  been  dreaming  they  were,  in  the  sunlit  garden  at 
home  playing  tennis  happily  if  a  little  violently,  but  in 
a  chilly  yet  stuffy  place  that  kept  on  tilting  itself 
upside  down.  They  lay  listening  to  the  groans  coming 
from  the  opposite  berths,  and  uneasily  wondering  how 
long  it  would  be  before  they  too  began  to  groan. 
Anna-Rose  raised  her  head  once  with  the  intention  of 
asking  if  she  could  help  at  all,  but  dropped  it  back 
again  on  to  the  pillow  and  shut  her  eyes  tight  and  lay 
as  quiet  as  the  ship  would  let  her.  Anna-Felicitas  didn't 
even  raise  her  head,  she  felt  so  very  uncomfortable. 

At  eight  o'clock  the  stewardess  looked  in — the  same 
stewardess,  they  languidly  noted,  with  whom  already 
they  had  had  two  encounters,  for  it  happened  that  this 
was  one  of  the  cabins  she  attended  to — and  said  that 
if  anybody  wanted  breakfast  they  had  better  be  quick 
or  it  would  be  over. 

"Breakfast!"  cried  the  top  berth  opposite  in  a 
heart-rending  tone;  and  instantly  was  sick. 

The  stewardess  withdrew  her  head  and  banged  the 
door  to,  and  the  twins,  in  their  uneasy  berths,  carefully 
keeping  their  eyes  shut  so  as  not  to  witness  the  behav- 
iour of  the  sides  and  ceiling  of  the  cabin,  feebly  mar- 
velled at  the  stewardess  for  suggesting  being  quick 
to  persons  who  were  being  constantly  stood  on  their 
heads.  And  breakfast, — they  shuddered  and  thought 
of  other  things;  of  fresh,  sweet  air,  and  of  the  scent  of 
pinks  and  apricots  warm  with  the  sun. 

At  ten  o'clock  the  stewardess  came  in  again,  this 
time  right  in,  and  with  determination  in  every  gesture. 

"Come,  come,"  she  said,  addressing  the  twins,  and 
through  them  talking  at  the  heaving  and  groaning 
occupants  of  the  other  side,  "you  mustn't  give  way  like 
this.     What  you  want  is  to  be  out  of  bed.     You  must 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         49 

get  up  and  go  on  deck.  And  how's  the  cabin  to  get  done 
if  you  stay  in  it  all  the  time?" 

Anna-Felicitas,  the  one  particularly  addressed,  be- 
cause she  was  more  on  the  right  level  for  conversation 
than  Anna-Rose,  who  could  only  see  the  stewardess's 
apron,  turned  her  head  away  and  murmured  that  she 
didn't  care. 

"Come,  come,"  said  the  stewardess.  "Besides, 
there's  life-boat  drill  at  mid-day,  and  you've  got  to  be 
present." 

Anna-Felicitas,  her  eyes  shut,  again  murmured  that 
she  didn't  care. 

"Come,  come,"  said  the  stewardess.  "Orders  are 
orders.  Every  soul  on  the  ship,  sick  or  not,  has  got 
to  be  present  at  life-boat  drill." 

"Oh,  I'm  not  a  soul,"  murmured  Anna-Felicitas, 
who  felt  at  that  moment  how  particularly  she  was  a 
body,  while  the  opposite  berths  redoubled  their  groans. 

"Come,  come "  said  the  stewardess. 

Then  the  St.  Luke  whistled  ^ve  times,  and  the  stew- 
ardess turned  pale.  For  a  brief  space,  before  they  un- 
derstood what  had  happened,  the  twins  supposed  she 
was  going  to  be  sick.  But  it  wasn't  that  that  was  the 
matter  with  her,  for  after  a  moment's  staring  at  nothing 
with  horror  on  her  face  she  pounced  on  them  and  pulled 
them  bodily  out  of  their  berths,  regardless  by  which 
end,  and  threw  them  on  the  floor  anyhow.  Then  she 
plunged  about  and  produced  life-jackets;  then  she 
rushed  down  the  passage  flinging  open  the  doors  of  the 
other  cabins;  then  she  whirled  back  again  and  tried 
to  tie  the  twins  into  their  life-jackets,  but  with  hands 
that  shook  so  that  the  strings  immediately  came  un- 
done again;  and  all  the  time  she  was  calling  out  "Quick 
— quick — quick ' ' 


50         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Tliere  was  a  great  tramping  of  feet  on  deck  and  cries 
and  shouting. 

The  curtains  of  the  opposite  berths  yawned  asunder 
and  out  came  the  Germans,  astonishingly  cured  of 
their  sea-sickness,  and  struggled  vigorously  into  their 
life-jackets  and  then  into  fur  coats,  and  had  the  fur 
coats  instantly  pulled  off  again  by  a  very  energetic 
steward  who  ran  in  and  said  fur  coats  in  the  water 
were  death-traps, — ^a  steward  so  much  bent  on  saving 
people  that  he  began  to  pull  off  the  other  things  the 
German  ladies  had  on  as  well,  saying  while  he  pulled, 
disregarding  their  protests,  that  in  the  water  Mother 
Nature  was  the  best.  "Mother  Nature — ^Mother 
Nature,"  said  the  steward,  pulling;  and  he  was  only 
stopped  just  in  the  nick  of  time  by  the  stewardess  rush- 
ing in  again  and  seeing  what  was  happening  to  the  help- 
less Germans. 

Anna-Rose,  even  at  that  moment  explanatory, 
pointed  out  to  Anna-Felicitas,  who  had  already  grasped 
the  fact,  that  no  doubt  there  was  a  submarine  some- 
where about.  The  German  ladies,  seizing  their  valua- 
bles from  beneath  their  pillows,  in  spite  of  the  steward 
assuring  them  they  wouldn't  want  them  in  the  water, 
demanded  to  be  taken  up  and  somehow  signalled  to  the 
submarine,  which  would  never  dare  do  anything  to  a 
ship  containing  its  own  flesh  and  blood — ^and  an  Amer- 
ican ship,  too — there  must  be  some  awful  mistake — ^but 
anyhow  they  must  be  saved — there  would  be  terrible 
trouble,  that  they  could  assure  the  steward  and  the 
twins  and  the  scurrying  passers-by  down  the  passage, 
if  America  allowed  two  Germans  to  be  destroyed — and 
anyhow  they  would  insist  on  having  their  passage 
money  refunded.     .     .     . 

The  German  ladies  departed  down  the  passage,  very 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         51 

incoherent  and  very  unhappy  but  no  longer  sick,  and 
Anna-Felicitas,  clinging  to  the  edge  of  her  berth,  feeling 
too  miserable  to  mind  about  the  submarine,  feebly 
wondered,  while  the  steward  tied  her  properly  into  her 
life-jacket,  at  the  cure  effected  in  them.  Anna-Rose 
seemed  cured  too,  for  she  was  buttoning  a  coat  round 
Anna-Fehcitas's  shoulders,  and  generally  seemed  busy 
and  brisk,  ending  by  not  even  forgetting  their  precious 
little  bag  of  money  and  tickets  and  passports,  and 
fastening  it  round  her  neck  in  spite  of  the  steward's 
assuring  her  that  it  would  drag  her  down  in  the  water 
like  a  stone  tied  to  a  kitten. 

"You're  a  very  cheerful  man,  aren't  you,"  Anna- 
Rose  said,  as  he  pushed  them  out  of  the  cabm  and 
along  the  corridor,  holding  up  Anna-Felicitas  on  her 
feet,  who  seemed  quite  unable  to  run  alone. 

The  steward  didn't  answer,  but  caugh,t  hold  of  Anna- 
Felicitas  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  and  carried  her  up 
them,  and  then  having  got  her  on  deck  propped  her  in 
a  corner  near  the  life-boat  allotted  to  the  set  of  cabins 
they  were  in,  and  darted  away  and  in  a  minute  was 
back  again  with  a  big  coat  which  he  wrapped  round 
her. 

"May  as  well  be  comfortable  till  you  do  begin  to 
drown,"  he  said  briskly,  "but  mind  you  don't  for- 
get to  throw  it  off,  Missie,  the  minute  you  feel  the 
water." 

Anna-Felicitas  slid  down  on  to  the  deck,  her  head 
leaning  against  the  wall,  her  eyes  shut,  a  picture  of 
complete  indifference  to  whatever  might  be  going  to 
hapi>en  next.  Her  face  was  now  as  white  as  the  frill 
of  the  night-gown  that  straggled  out  from  beneath  her 
coat,  for  the  journey  from  the  cabin  to  the  deck  had 
altogether  finished  her. 


52  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

Anna-Rose  was  thankful  that  she  felt  too  ill  to  be 
afraid.  Her  own  heart  was  black  with  despair, — de- 
spair that  Anna-Felicitas,  the  dear  and  beautiful  one, 
should  presently,  at  any  moment,  be  thrown  into  that 
awful  heaving  water,  and  certainly  be  hurt  and  fright- 
ened before  she  was  choked  out  of  life. 

She  sat  down  beside  her,  getting  as  close  as  possible 
to  keep  her  warm.  Her  own  twin.  Her  own  beloved 
twin.  She  took  her  cold  hands  and  put  them  away 
beneath  the  coat  the  steward  had  brought.  She  slid 
an  arm  round  her  and  laid  her  cheek  against  her  sleeve, 
so  that  she  should  know  somebody  was  there,  somebody 
who  loved  her.     "What's  the  good  of  it  all — why  were 

we  bom "  she  wondered,  staring  at  the  hideous 

gray  waves  as  they  swept  up  into  sight  over  the  side  of 
the  ship  and  away  again  as  the  ship  rose  up,  and  at  the 
wet  deck  and  the  torn  sky,  and  the  miserable-looking 
passengers  in  their  life-jackets  collected  together  round 
the  life-boat. 

Nobody  said  anything  except  the  German  ladies. 
They,  indeed,  kept  up  a  constant  wail.  The  others 
were  silent,  the  men  mostly  smoking  cigarettes,  the 
women  holding  their  fluttering  wraps  about  them,  all 
of  them  staring  out  to  sea,  watching  for  the  track  of 
the  torpedo  to  appear.  One  shot  had  been  fired  already 
and  had  missed.  The  ship  was  zig-zagging  under  every 
ounce  of  steam  she  could  lay  on.  An  official  stood  by 
the  life-boat,  which  was  ready  with  water  in  it  and 
provisions.  That  the  submarine  must  be  mad,  as 
the  official  remarked,  to  fire  on  an  American  ship,  didn't 
console  anybody,  and  his  further  assurance  that  the 
matter  would  not  be  allowed  to  rest  there  left  them  cold. 
They  felt  too  sure  that  in  all  probability  they  them- 
selves were  going  to  rest  there,  down  underneath  that 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  53 

repulsive  icy  water,  after  a  struggle  that  was  going  to 
be  unpleasant. 

The  man  who  had  roused  Anna-Rose's  indignation 
as  the  ship  left  the  landing-stage  by  looking  as  though 
he  were  soon  going  to  be  sorry  for  her,  came  across 
from  the  first  class,  where  his  life-boat  was,  to  watch 
for  the  track  of  the  expected  torpedo,  and  caught  sight 
of  the  twins  huddled  in  their  corner. 

Anna-Rose  didn't  see  him,  for  she  was  staring  with 
wide  eyes  out  at  the  desolate  welter  of  water  and 
cloud,  and  thinking  of  home:  the  home  that  was,  that 
used  to  be  till  such  a  little  while  ago,  the  home  that 
now  seemed  to  have  been  so  amazingly,  so  unbelievably 
beautiful  and  blest,  with  its  daily  life  of  love  and 
laughter  and  of  easy  confidence  that  to-morrow  was 
going  to  be  just  as  good.  Happiness  had  been  the 
ordinary  condition  there,  a  simple  matter  of  course. 
Its  place  was  taken  now  by  courage.  Anna-Rose  felt 
sick  at  all  this  courage  there  was  about.  There  should 
be  no  occasion  for  it.  There  should  be  no  horrors  to 
face,  no  cruelties  to  endure.  Why  couldn't  brotherly 
love  continue?  Why  must  people  get  killing  each 
other  .f^  She,  for  her  part,  would  be  behind  nobody 
in  courage  and  in  the  defying  of  a  Fate  that  could 
behave,  as  she  felt,  so  very  unlike  her  idea  of  anything 
even  remotely  decent;  but  it  oughtn't  to  be  necessary, 
this  constant  condition  of  screwed-upness;  it  was  waste 
of  effort,  waste  of  time,  waste  of  life, — oh  the  stupidity 
of  it  all,  she  thought,  rebellious  and  bewildered. 

"Have  some  brandy,"  said  the  man,  pouring  out  a 
little  into  a  small  cup. 

Anna-Rose  turned  her  eyes  on  him  without  moving 
the  rest  of  her.  She  recognized  him.  He  was  going 
to  be  sorry  for  them  again.     He  had  much  better  be 


54  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

sorry  for  himself  now,  she  thought,  because  he,  just  as 
much  as  they  were,  was  bound  for  a  watery  bier. 

"Thank  you,"  she  said  distantly,  for  not  only  did 
she  hate  the  smell  of  brandy  but  Aunt  Alice  had  en- 
joined her  with  peculiar  strictness  on  no  account  to 
talk  to  strange  men,  "I  don't  drink." 

"Then  I'll  give  the  other  one  some,"  said  the 
man. 

"She  too,"  said  Anna-Rose,  not  changing  her  posi- 
tion but  keeping  a  drearily  watchful  eye  on  him,  "is  a 
total  abstainer." 

"Well,  I'll  go  and  fetch  some  of  your  warm  things 
for  you.  Tell  me  where  your  cabin  is.  You  haven't 
got  enough  on." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Anna-Rose  distantly,  "we  have 
quite  enough  on,  considering  the  occasion.  We're 
dressed  for  drowning." 

The  man  laughed,  and  said  there  would  be  no  drown- 
ing, and  that  they  had  a  splendid  captain,  and  were 
outdistancing  the  submarine  hand  over  fist.  Anna- 
Rose  didn't  believe  him,  and  suspected  him  of  supposing 
her  to  be  m  need  of  cheering,  but  a  gleam  of  comfort 
did  in  spite  of  herself  steal  into  her  heart. 

He  went  away,  and  presently  came  back  with  a 
blanket  and  some  pillows. 

"If  you  will  sit  on  the  floor,"  he  said,  stuffing  the 
pillows  behind  their  backs,  during  which  Anna-Felicitas 
didn't  open  her  eyes,  and  her  head  hung  about  so  limply 
that  it  looked  as  if  it  might  at  any  moment  roll  off, 
"you  may  at  least  be  as  comfortable  as  you  can." 

Anna-Rose  pointed  out,  while  she  helped  him  arrange 
Anna-Felicitas's  indifferent  head  on  the  pillow,  that 
she  saw  little  use  in  being  comfortable  just  a  minute 
or  two  before  drowning. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  55 

"Drowning  be  hanged,"  said  the  man. 

"That's  how  Uncle  Arthur  used  to  talk,"  said  Anna- 
Rose,  feeling  suddenly  quite  at  home,  "except  that  he 
would  have  said  'Drowning  be  damned.'" 

The  man  laughed.  "Is  he  dead?"  he  asked,  busy 
with  Anna-Felicitas's  head,  which  defied  their  united 
efforts  to  make  it  hold  itself  up. 

"Dead?"  echoed  Anna-Rose,  to  whom  the  idea  of 
Uncle  Arthur's  ever  being  anything  so  quiet  as  dead 
and  not  able  to  say  any  swear  words  for  such  a  long 
time  as  eternity  seemed  very  odd. 

"You  said  he  used  to  talk  like  that." 

"Oh,  no  he's  not  dead  at  all.     Quite  the  contrary." 

The  man  laughed  again,  and  having  got  Anna- 
Felicitas's  head  arranged  in  a  position  that  at  least, 
as  Anna-Rose  pointed  out,  had  some  sort  of  self-respect 
in  it,  he  asked  who  they  were  with. 

Anna-Rose  looked  at  him  with  as  much  defiant  in- 
dei>endence  as  she  could  manage  to  somebody  who  was 
putting  a  pillow  behind  her  back.  He  was  going  to  be 
sorry  for  them.  She  saw  it  coming.  He  was  going  to 
say  "  You  poor  things,"  or  words  to  that  effect.  That's 
what  the  people  round  Uncle  Arthur's  had  said  to  them. 
That's  what  everybody  had  said  to  them  since  the  war 
began,  and  Aunt  Alice's  friends  had  said  it  to  her  too, 
because  she  had  to  have  her  nieces  live  with  her,  and 
no  doubt  Uncle  Arthur's  friends  who  played  golf  with 
him  had  said  it  to  him  as  well,  except  that  probably 
they  put  in  a  danm  so  as  to  make  it  clearer  for  him  and 
said  "You  poor  damned  thing,"  or  something  like  that, 
and  she  was  sick  of  the  very  words  poor  things.  Poor 
things,  indeed!  "We're  with  each  other,"  she  said 
briefly,  lifting  her  chin. 

"Well,  I  don't  think  that's  enough,"  said  the  man. 


56         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Not  half  enough.     You  ought  to  have  a  mother  or 
something." 

*' Everybody  can't  have  mothers,"  said  Anna-Rose 
very  defiantly  indeed,  tears  rushing  into  her  eyes. 

The  man  tucked  the  blanket  round  their  resistless 
legs.  "  There  now,"  he  said.  "  That's  better.  What's 
the  good  of  catching  your  deaths?" 

Anna-Rose,  glad  that  he  hadn't  gone  on  about 
mothers,  said  that  with  so  much  death  imminent, 
catching  any  of  it  no  longer  seemed  to  her  particularly 
to  matter,  and  the  man  laughed  and  pulled  over  a 
chair  and  sat  down  beside  her. 

She  didn't  know  what  he  saw  anywhere  in  that 
dreadful  situation  to  laugh  at,  but  just  the  sound  of  a 
laugh  was  extraordinarily  comforting.  It  made  one 
feel  quite  different.  Wholesome  again.  Like  waking 
up  to  sunshine  and  one's  morning  bath  and  breakfast 
after  a  nightmare.  He  seemed  altogether  a  very  com- 
forting man.  She  liked  him  to  sit  near  them.  She 
hoj>ed  he  was  a  good  man.  Aunt  Alice  had  said  there 
were  very  few  good  men,  hardly  any  in  fact  except  one's 
husband,  but  this  one  did  seem  one  of  the  few  exceptions. 
And  she  thought  that  by  now,  he  having  brought 
them  all  those  pillows,  he  could  no  longer  come  under 
the  heading  of  strange  men.  When  he  wasn't  look- 
ing she  put  out  her  hand  secretly  and  touched  his 
coat  where  he  wouldn't  feel  it.  It  comforted  her  to 
touch  his  coat.  She  hoped  Aunt  Alice  wouldn't  have 
disapproved  of  seeing  her  sitting  side  by  side  with  him 
and  liking  it. 

Aunt  Alice  had  been,  as  her  custom  was,  vague,  when 
Anna-Rose,  having  given  her  the  desired  promise  not 
to  talk  or  let  Anna-Felicitas  talk  to  strange  men,  and 
desiring  to  collect  any  available  information  for  her 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         57 

guidance  in  her  new  responsible  position  had  asked, 
"But  when  are  men  not  strange?" 

"When  you've  married  them,"  said  Aunt  Alice. 
"After  that,  of  course,  you  love  them." 

And  she  sighed  heavily,  for  it  was  bed-time. 


CHAPTER  VI 

OTHING  more  was  seen  of  the  submarine. 
The  German  ladies  were  certain  the  captain 
had  somehow  let  them  know  he  had  them  on 
board,  and  were  as  full  of  the  credit  of  having  saved 
the  ship  as  if  it  had  been  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  instead 
of  a  ship,  and  they  the  one  just  man  whose  presence 
would  have  saved  those  cities  if  he  had  been  in  them; 
and  the  American  passengers  v^^ere  equally  sure  that 
the  submarine,  on  thinking  it  over,  had  decided  that 
President  Wilson  was  not  a  man  to  be  trifled  with,  and 
had  gone  in  search  of  some  prey  which  would  not  have 
the  might  and  majesty  of  America  at  its  back. 

As  the  day  went  on,  and  the  St,  Luke  left  off  zig- 
zagging, the  relief  of  those  on  board  was  the  relief  of  a 
reprieve  from  death.  Almost  everybody  was  cured  of 
sea-sickness,  and  quite  everybody  was  ready  to  over- 
whelm his  neighbour  with  cordiality  and  benevolence. 
Rich  people  didn't  mind  poor  people,  and  came  along 
from  the  first  class  and  tallced  to  them  just  as  if  they  had 
been  the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  themselves.  A 
billionairess  native  to  Chicago,  who  had  crossed  the 
Atlantic  forty  times  without  speaking  to  a  soul,  an 
achievement  she  was  as  justly  proud  of  as  an  artist  is 
of  his  best  creations,  actually  asked  somebody  in  a 
dingy  mackintosh,  whose  little  boy  still  looked  pale, 
if  he  had  been  frightened;  and  an  exclusive  young  man 
from  Boston  talked  quite  a  long  Vv^hile  to  an  English  lady 
without  first  having  made  sure  that  she  was  well- 

58 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  59 

connected.  What  could  have  been  more  like  heaven? 
The  tone  on  the  St,  Luke  that  day  was  very  like  what 
the  tone  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven  must  be  in  its  simple 
politeness.  "And  so  you  see,"  said  Anna-Rose,  who  was 
fond  of  philosophizing  in  season  and  out  of  season,  and 
particularly  out  of  season,  "how  good  comes  out  of  evil." 

She  made  this  observation  about  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  to  Anna-Felicitas  in  an  interval  of  absence 
on  the  part  of  Mr.  Twist — such,  the  amiable  stranger 
had  told  them,  was  his  name — who  had  gone  to  see 
about  tea  being  brought  up  to  them;  and  Anna-Felicitas, 
able  by  now  to  sit  up  and  take  notice,  the  hours  of  fresh 
air  having  done  their  work,  smiled  the  ready,  watery, 
foolishly  happy  smile  of  the  convalescent.  It  was 
so  nice  not  to  feel  ill;  it  was  so  nice  not  to  have  to  be 
saved.  If  she  had  been  able  to  talk  much,  she  would 
have  philosophized  too,  about  the  number  and  size 
of  one's  negative  blessings — all  the  things  one  hasn't 
got,  all  the  very  horrid  things;  why,  there's  no  end  to 
them  once  you  begin  to  count  up,  she  thought,  waterily 
happy,  and  yet  people  grumble. 

Anna-Felicitas  was  in  that  cleaned-out,  beatific,  con- 
valescent mood  in  which  one  is  sure  one  will  never  grum- 
ble again.  She  smiled  at  anybody  who  happened  to 
pass  by  and  catch  her  eye.  She  would  have  smiled 
just  like  that,  with  just  that  friendly,  boneless  famil- 
iarity at  the  devil  if  he  had  appeared,  or  even  at  Uncle 
Arthur  himself. 

The  twins,  as  a  result  of  the  submarine's  activities, 
were  having  the  pleasantest  day  they  had  had  for 
months.  It  was  the  realization  of  this  that  caused 
Anna-Rose's  remark  about  good  coming  out  of  evil. 
The  background,  she  could  not  but  perceive,  was  a 
very  odd  one  for  their  pleasantest  day  for  months — a 


60  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

rolling  steamer  and  a  cold  wind  flicking  at  them  round 
the  corner;  but  backgrounds,  she  pointed  out  to  Anna- 
Felicitas,  who  smiled  her  agreement  broadly  and  in- 
stantly, are  negligible  things :  it  is  what  goes  on  in  front 
of  them  that  matters.  Of  what  earthly  use,  for  in- 
stance, had  been  those  splendid  summer  afternoons  in 
the  perfect  woods  and  gardens  that  so  beautifully 
framed  in  Uncle  Arthur? 

No  use,  agreed  Anna-Felicitas,  smiling  fatuously. 

In  the  middle  of  them  was  Uncle  Arthur.  You 
always  got  to  him  in  the  end. 

Anna-Felicitas  nodded  and  shook  her  head  and  was 
all  feeble  agreement. 

She  and  Anna-Felicitas  had  been  more  hopelessly 
miserable,  Anna-Rose  remarked,  wandering  about  the 
loveliness  that  belonged  to  him  than  they  could  ever 
have  dreamed  was  possible.  She  reminded  Anna- 
Felicitas  how  they  used  to  rub  their  eyes  to  try  and  see 
more  clearly,  for  surely  these  means  of  happiness,  these 
elaborate  arrangements  for  it  all  round  them,  couldn't 
be  for  nothing?  There  must  be  some  of  it  somewhere, 
if  only  they  could  discover  where?  And  there  was 
none.  Not  a  trace  of  it.  Not  even  the  faintest  little 
swish  of  its  skirts. 

Anna-Rose  left  off  talking,  and  became  lost  in  mem- 
ories. For  a  long  time,  she  remembered,  she  had  told 
herself  it  was  her  mother's  death  blotting  the  light  out 
of  life,  but  one  day  Anna-Felicitas  said  aloud  that  it 
was  Uncle  Arthur,  and  Anna-Rose  knew  it  was  true. 
Their  mother's  death  was  something  so  tender,  so 
beautiful,  that  terrible  as  it  was  to  them  to  be  left 
without  her  they  yet  felt  raised  up  by  it  somehow, 
raised  on  to  a  higher  level  than  where  they  had  been 
before,  closer  in  their  hearts  to  real  things,  to  real 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         61 

values.  But  Uncle  Arthur  came  into  possession  of  their 
lives  as  a  consequence  of  that  death,  and  he  had  towered 
up  between  them  and  every  glimpse  of  the  sun.  Sud- 
denly there  was  no  such  thing  as  freedom  and  laughter. 
Suddenly  everything  one  said  and  did  was  wrong. 
"And  you  needn't  think,"  Anna-Felicitas  had  said 
wisely,  *'that  he's  like  that  because  we're  Germans — 
or  seem  to  be  Germans,"  she  amended.  "It's  because 
he's  Uncle  Arthur.  Look  at  Aunt  Alice.  She's  not 
a  German.     And  yet  look  at  her." 

And  Anna-Rose  had  looked  at  Aunt  Alice,  though 
only  in  her  mind's  eye,  for  at  that  moment  the  twins 
were  three  miles  away  in  a  wood  picnicking,  and  Aunt 
Alice  was  at  home  recovering  from  a  tete-a-tete  luncheon 
with  Uncle  Arthur  who  hadn't  said  a  word  from  start 
to  finish;  and  though  she  didn't  like  most  of  his  words 
when  he  did  say  them,  she  liked  them  still  less  when  he 
didn't  say  them,  for  then  she  imagined  them,  and  what 
she  imagined  was  simply  awful, — Anna-Rose  had,  I 
say,  looked  at  Aunt  Alice  in  her  mind's  eye,  and  knew 
that  this  too  was  true. 

Mr.  Twist  reappeared,  followed  by  the  brisk  steward 
with  a  tray  of  tea  and  cake,  and  their  comer  became  very 
like  a  cheerful  picnic. 

Mr.  Twist  was  most  pleasant  and  polite.  Anna- 
Rose  had  told  him  quite  soon  after  he  began  to  talk  to 
her,  in  order,  as  she  said,  to  clear  his  mind  of  miscon- 
ceptions, that  she  and  Anna-Felicitas,  though  their 
clothes  at  that  moment,  and  the  pigtails  in  which  their 
hair  was  done,  might  be  misleading,  were  no  longer 
children,  but  quite  the  contrary;  that  they  were,  in 
fact,  persons  who  were  almost  ripe  for  going  to  dances, 
and  certainly  in  another  year  would  be  perfectly  ripe 
for  dances  supposing  there  were  any. 


62  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Mr.  Twist  listened  attentively,  and  begged  her  to 
tell  him  any  other  little  thing  she  might  think  of  as 
useful  to  him  in  his  capacity  of  friend  and  attendant, — 
both  of  which,  said  Mr.  Twist,  he  intended  to  be  till  he 
had  seen  them  safely  landed  in  New  York. 

"I  hope  you  don't  think  we  need  anybody,"  said 
Anna-Rose.  "We  shall  like  being  friends  with  you 
very  much,  but  only  on  terms  of  perfect  equality." 

"Sure,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  was  an  American. 

"I  thought " 

She  hesitated  a  moment. 

"You  thought?"  encouraged  Mr.  Twist  politely. 

"I  thought  at  Liverpool  you  looked  as  if  you  were 
being  sorry  for  us." 

"  Sorry .^"  said  Mr.  Twist,  in  the  tone  of  one  who 
repudiates. 

"Yes.  When  we  were  waving  good-bye  to — to  our 
friends." 

"  Sorry  .^"  repeated  Mr.  Twist. 

"Which  was  great  waste  of  your  time." 

"I  should  think  so,"  said  Mr.  Twist  with  heartiness. 

Anna-Rose,  having  cleared  the  ground  of  misunder- 
standings, an  activity  in  which  at  all  times  she  took 
pleasure,  accepted  Mr.  Twist's  attentions  in  the  spirit 
in  which  they  were  offered,  which  was,  as  he  said,  one 
of  mutual  friendliness  and  esteem.  As  he  was  never 
sea-sick,  he  could  move  about  and  do  things  for  them 
that  might  be  diflScult  to  do  for  themselves;  as  he  knew 
a  great  deal  about  stewardesses,  he  could  tell  them  what 
sort  of  tip  theirs  expected;  as  he  was  American,  he 
could  illuminate  them  about  that  country.  He  had 
been  doing  Red  Cross  work  with  an  American  ambu- 
lance in  France  for  ten  months,  and  was  going  home  for 
a  short  visit  to  see  how  his  mother,  who,  Anna-Rose 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         63 

gathered,  was  ancient  and  widowed,  was  getting  on. 
His  mother,  he  said,  lived  in  seclusion  in  a  New  Eng- 
land village  with  his  sister,  who  had  not  married. 

"Then  she's  got  it  all  before  her,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Like  us,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"I  shouldn't  think  she'd  got  as  much  of  it  before  her 
as  you,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  "because  she's  considerably 
more  grown  up — ^I  mean,"  he  added  hastily,  as  Anna- 
Rose's  mouth  opened,  "she's  less — well,  less  completely 
young." 

"We're  not  completely  young,"  said  Anna-Rose  with 
dignity.  "Peoplearecompletely  young  the  day  they're 
born,  and  ever  after  that  they  spend  their  time  becom- 
ing less  so."  ,^ 

"Exactly.  ^  And  my  sister  has  been  becoming  less  so 
longer  than  you  have.  I  assure  you  that's  all  I  meant. 
She's  less  so  even  than  I  am." 

"Then,"  said  Anna-Rose,  glancing  at  that  part  of 
Mr.  Twist's  head  where  it  appeared  to  be  coming 
through  his  hair,  "she  must  have  got  to  the  stage  when 
one  is  called  a  maiden  lady." 

"And  if  she  were  a  German,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
suddenly,  who  hadn't  till  then  said  anything  to  Mr. 
Twist  but  only  smiled  widely  at  him  whenever  he  hap- 
pened to  look  her  way,  "she  wouldn't  be  either  a  lady 
or  a  maiden,  but  just  an  It.  It's  very  rude  of  Germans, 
I  thinlc,"  went  on  Anna-Felicitas,  abstractedly  smiling 
at  the  cake  Mr.  Twist  was  offering  her,  "never  to  let 
us  be  anything  but  Its  till  we've  taken  on  some  men.'' 

Mr.  Twist  expressed  surprise  at  this  way  of  describ- 
ing marriage,  and  inquired  of  Anna-Felicitas  what  she 
knew  about  Germans. 

"The  moment  you  leave  off  being  sea-sick,  Anna-F.," 
said  Anna-Rose,  turning  to  her  severely,  "you  start 


64  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

being  indiscreet.  Well,  I  suppose,"  she  added  with  a 
sigh  to  Mr.  Twist,  "you'd  have  had  to  know  sooner  or 
later.     Our  name  is  Twinkler." 

She  watched  him  to  see  the  effect  of  this,  and  Mr. 
Twist,  perceiving  he  was  expected  to  say  something, 
said  that  he  didn't  mind  that  anyhow,  and  that  he 
could  bear  something  worse  in  the  way  of  revelations. 

"Does  it  convey  nothing  to  you.?"  asked  Anna-Rose, 
astonished,  for  in  Germany  the  name  of  Twinlder  was  a 
mighty  name,  and  even  in  England  it  was  well  known. 

Mr.  Twist  shook  his  head.  "Only  that  it  sounds 
cheerful,"  he  said. 

Anna-Rose  watched  liis  face.  "It  isn't  only  Twink- 
ler," she  said,  spealdng  very  distinctly.  "It's  von 
Twinkler." 

"That's  German,"  said  Mr.  Twist;  but  his  face  re- 
mained serene. 

"Yes.  And  so  are  we.  That  is,  we  would  be  if  it 
didn't  happen  that  we  weren't." 

"I  don't  think  I  quite  follow,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 
"It  is  very  difficult,"  agreed  Anna-Rose.     "You  see, 
we  used  to  have  a  German  father." 

"But  only  because  our  mother  married  him,"  ex- 
plained Anna-Felicitas.     "Else  we  wouldn't  have." 

"And  though  she  only  did  it  once,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
"ages  ago,  it  has  dogged  our  footsteps  ever  since." 

"It's  very  surprising,"  mused  Anna-Felicitas,  "what 
marrying  anybody  does.  You  go  into  a  church,  and 
before  you  know  where  you  are,  you're  all  tangled  up 
with  posterity." 

"And  much  worse  than  that,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
staring  wide-eyed  at  her  own  past  experiences,  "pos- 
terity's all  tangled  up  with  you.  It's  really  simply 
awful  sometimes  for  posterity.     Look  at  us." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         G5 

"If  there  hadn't  been  a  war  we'd  have  been  all  right," 
said  Anna-FeHcitas.  "But  directly  there's  a  war, 
whoever  it  is  you've  married,  if  it  isn't  one  of  your  own 
countrymen,  rises  up  against  you,  just  as  if  he  were  too 
many  meringues  you'd  had  for  dmner." 

"Living  or   dead,"   said  Anna-Rose,  noddmg,      He 

rises  up  against  you."  n     u     4-  •+  " 

"Till  the  war  we  never  thought  at  all  about  it, 

said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Either  one  way  or  the  other,"  said  Anna-Kose.      ^^ 

"We  never  used  to  bother  about  what  we  were, 
said  Anna-Felicitas.     "We  were  just  human  bemgs, 
and  so  was  everybody  else  just  human  beings. 

"We  didn't  mind  a  bit  about  being  Germans,  or 
about  other  people  not  being  Germans."  ^^ 

"But  you  mustn't  think  we  mind  now  either,  said 
Anna-Felicitas,  "because,  you  see,  we're  not." 

Mr.  Twist  looked  at  them  in  turn.  His  ears  were  a 
little  prominent  and  pointed,  and  they  gave  1^™^^^^^^ 
the  air,  when  he  put  his  head  on  one  side  and  looked  at 
them,  of  an  attentive  fox-terrier.  "I  dont  thmk  1 
quite  follow,"  he  said  again. 

"It  is  very  difficult,"  agreed  Anna-Rose. 

"It's  because  you've  got  into  your  head  that  we  re 
German  because  of  our  father,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"But  what's  a  father,  when  all's  said  and  done?    ^^ 

"Well,"  said  Mr.  T\  :3t,  " one  has  to  have  him.     ^ 

"But  having  got  him  he  isn't  anything  like  as  im- 
portant as  a  mother,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"One  hardly  sees  one's  father,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"He's  always  busy.  He's  always  thinking  of  some- 
thing else." 

"Except  when  he  looks  at  one  and  tells  one  to  sit  up 
straight,"  said  Anna-Rose  pointedly  to  Anna-Felicitas, 


60         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

whose  liabit  of  drooping  still  persisted  in  spite  of  her 
father's  admonishments. 

"Of  course  he's  very  kind  and  benevolent  when  he 
happens  to  remember  that  one  is  there,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  sitting  up  beautifully  for  a  moment,  "but 
that's  about  everything." 

"And  of  course,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "one's  father's 
intentions  are  perfectly  sound  and  good,  but  his  atten- 
tion seems  to  wander.     Whereas  one's  mother " 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "one's  mother " 

They  broke  off  and  looked  straight  in  front  of  them. 
It  didn't  bear  speaking  of,  ^It  didn't  bear  thinking 
of. 

Suddenly  Anna-Felicitas,  weak  from  excessive  sea- 
sickness, began  to  cry.  The  tears  just  slopped  over  as 
though  no  resistance  of  any  sort  were  possible. 

Anna-Rose  stared  at  her  a  moment  horror-struck. 
"Look  here,  Anna-F.,"  she  exclaimed,  wrath  in  her 
voice,  "I  won't  have  you  be  sentimental — ^I  won't 
have  you  be  sentimental.     .     .     ." 

And  then  she  too  began  to  cry. 

Well,  once  having  hopelessly  disgraced  and  exposed 
themselves,  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  take  Mr. 
Twist  into  their  uttermost  confidence.  It  was  dread- 
ful. It  was  awful.  Before  that  strange  man.  A  per- 
son they  hardly  knew.  Other  strangers  passing. 
Exposing  their  feelings.  Showing  their  innermost 
miserable  places. 

They  writhed  and  struggled  in  their  efforts  to  stop, 
to  pretend  they  weren't  crying,  that  it  was  really  noth- 
ing but  just  tears, — odd  ones  left  over  from  last  time, 
which  was  years  and  years  ago, — "But  really  years 
and  years  ago,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose,  anxiously  explain- 
ing> — "the  years  one  falls  down  on  garden  paths  in, 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         67 

and  cuts  one's  knees,  and  one's  mother — one's  mother 
— e-c-c-comforts  one " 

"See  here,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  interrupting  these  inco- 
herences, and  pulling  out  a  beautiful  clean  pocket- 
handkerchief  which  hadn't  even  been  unfolded  yet, 
"you've  got  to  tell  me  all  about  it  right  away." 

And  he  shook  out  the  handkerchief,  and  with  the 
first-aid  promptness  his  Red  Cross  experience  had 
taught  him,  started  competently  wiping  up  their  faces. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THERE  was  that  about  Mr.  Twist  which,  once 
one  had  begun  them,  encouraged  confidences; 
something  kind  about  his  eyes,  something  not 
too  determined  about  his  chin.  He  bore  no  resem- 
blance to  those  pictures  of  efficient  Americans  in  adver- 
tisements with  which  Europe  is  famihar, — eagle-faced 
gentlemen  with  intimidatingly  firm  mouths  and  chins, 
wiry  creatures,  physically  and  mentally  perfect,  offering 
in  capital  letters  to  make  you  Just  Like  Them.  Mr. 
Twist  was  the  reverse  of  eagle-faced.  He  was  also  the 
reverse  of  good-looking;  that  is,  he  would  have  been 
very  handsome  indeed,  as  Anna-Rose  remarked  several 
days  later  to  Anna-Felicitas,  when  the  friendship  had 
become  a  settled  thing, — which  indeed  it  did  as  soon 
as  Mr.  Tvvdst  had  finished  wiping  their  eyes  and  noses 
that  first  afternoon,  it  being  impossible,  they  discovered, 
to  have  one's  eyes  and  noses  wiped  by  somebody  with- 
out being  friends  afterwards  (for  such  an  acitivity, 
said  Anna-Felicitas,  belonged  to  the  same  order  of 
events  as  rescue  from  fire,  lions,  or  drowning,  after 
which  in  books  you  married  him;  but  this  having  only 
been  wiping,  said  Anna-Rose,  the  case  was  adequately 
met  by  friendship) — he  would  have  been  very  hand- 
some indeed  if  he  hadn't  had  a  face. 

"But  you  have  to  have  a  face,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
who  didn't  think  it  much  mattered  what  sort  it  was  so 
long  as  you  could  eat  with  it  and  see  out  of  it. 

"And  as  long  as  one  is  as  kind  as  Mr.  Twist,"  said 

cs 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  69 

Anna-Rose;  but  secretly  she  thought  that  having  been 
begun  so  successfully  at  his  feet,  and  carried  upwards 
with  such  grace  of  long  limbs  and  happy  proportions, 
he  might  as  well  have  gone  on  equally  felicitously  for 
the  last  little  bit. 

"I  expect  God  got  tired  of  him  over  that  last  bit," 
she  mused,  "and  just  put  on  any  sort  of  head." 

"Yes — ^that  happened  to  be  lying  about,"  agreed 
Anna-Felicitas.     "In  a  hurry  to  get  done  with  him." 

"Anyway  he's  very  kind,"  said  Anna-Rose,  a  slight 
touch  of  defiance  in  her  voice. 

"Oh,  very  kind,"  agreed  Anna-Felicitas. 

"And  it  doesn't  matter  about  faces  for  being  kind," 
said  Anna-Rose. 

"Not  in  the  least,"  agreed  Anna-Felicitas. 

"And  if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  submarine  we  shouldn't 
have  got  to  know  him.  So  you  see,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
— and  again  produced  her  favourite  remark  about  good 
coming  out  of  evil. 

Those  were  the  days  in  mid-Atlantic  when  England 
was  lost  in  its  own  peculiar  mists,  and  the  sunshine 
of  America  was  stretching  out  towards  them.  The 
sea  was  getting  calmer  and  bluer  every  hour,  and  sub- 
marines  more  and  more  unlikely.  If  a  ship  could  be 
pleasant,  which  Anna-Felicitas  doubted,  for  she  still 
found  difficulty  in  dressing  and  undressing  without 
being  sea-sick  and  was  unpopular  in  the  cabin,  this  ship 
was  pleasant.  You  lay  in  a  deck-chair  all  day  long,^ 
staring  at  the  blue  sky  and  blue  sea  that  enclosed  you 
as  if  you  were  living  in  the  middle  of  a  jewel,  and  tried 
not  to  remember — oh,  there  were  heaps  of  things  it  was 
best  not  to  remember;  and  when  the  rail  of  the  ship 
moved  up  across  the  horizon  too  far  into  the  sky,  or 
moved  down  across  it  and  showed  too  much  water,  you 


70         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

just  shut  your  eyes  and  then  it  didn't  matter;  and  the 
sun  shone  warm  and  steady  on  your  face,  and  the  wind 
tickled  the  tassel  on  the  top  of  your  German-knitted  cap, 
and  Mr.  Twist  came  and  read  aloud  to  you,  which  sent 
you  to  sleep  quicker  than  anything  you  had  ever  known. 

The  book  he  read  out  of  and  carried  about  with  him  in 
his  jx)cket  was  called  "Masterpieces  You  Must  Master," 
and  was  an  American  collection  of  English  poetry, 
professing  in  its  preface  to  be  a  Short  Cut  to  Culture; 
and  he  would  read  with  what  at  that  time,  it  being  new 
to  them,  seemed  to  the  twins  a  strange  exotic  pronuncia- 
tion, Wordsworth's  **Ode  to  Dooty,"  and  the  effect 
was  as  if  someone  should  dig  a  majestic  Gregorian 
psalm  in  its  ribs,  and  make  it  leap  and  giggle. 

Anna-Rose,  who  had  no  reason  to  shut  her  eyes,  for 
she  didn't  mind  what  the  ship's  rail  did  with  the  hori- 
zon, opened  them  very  round  when  first  Mr.  Twist 
started  on  his  Masterpieces.  She  was  used  to  hearing 
them  read  by  her  mother  in  the  adorable  husky  voice 
that  sent  such  thrills  through  one,  but  she  listened  with 
the  courtesy  and  final  gratitude  due  to  the  efforts  to 
entertain  her  of  so  amiable  a  friend,  and  only  the  round- 
ness of  her  eyes  showed  her  astonishment  at  this  waltz- 
ing round,  as  it  appeared  to  her,  of  Mr.  Twist  with  the 
Stern  Daughter  of  the  Voice  of  God.  He  also  read 
"Lycidas"to  her,  that  same  "Lycidas"  Uncle  Arthur  took 
for  a  Derby  winner,  and  only  Anna-Rose's  politeness 
enabled  her  to  refrain  from  stopping  up  her  ears.  As  it 
was,  she  fidgeted  to  the  point  of  having  to  explain,  on  Mr. 
Twist's  pausing  to  gaze  at  her  questioningly  through 
the  smoke-coloured  spectacles  he  wore  on  deck,  which 
made  him  look  so  like  a  gigantic  dragon-fly,  that  it  was 
because  her  deck-chair  was  so  very  much  harder  than 
she  was. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  71 

Anna-Felicitas,  who  considered  that,  if  these  things 
were  short-cuts  to  anywhere,  seeing  she  knew  them  all 
by  heart  she  must  have  long  ago  got  there,  snoozed 
complacently.  Sometimes  for  a  few  moments  she 
would  drop  off  really  to  sleep,  and  then  her  mouth 
would  fall  open,  which  worried  Anna-Rose,  who  couldn't 
bear  her  to  look  even  for  a  moment  less  beautiful  than 
she  knew  she  was,  so  that  she  fidgeted  more  than  ever, 
unable,  pinned  down  by  politeness  and  the  culture  being 
administered,  to  make  her  shut  her  mouth  and  look 
beautiful  again  by  taking  and  shaking  her.  Also 
Anna-Felicitas  had  a  trick  of  waking  up  suddenly  and 
forgetting  to  be  polite,  as  one  does  when  first  one  wakes 
up  and  hasn't  had  time  to  remember  one  is  a  lady. 
"To-morrow  to  fresh  woods  and  pastures  noo,"  Mr. 
Twist  would  finish,  for  instance,  with  a  sort  of  gulp  of 
satisfaction  at  having  swallowed  yet  another  solid 
slab  of  culture;  and  Anna-Felicitas,  returning  suddenly 
to  consciousness,  would  murmur,  with  her  eyes  still 
shut  and  her  head  lolling  limply,  things  like,  "After 
all,  it  does  rhyme  with  blue.  I  wonder  why,  then,  one 
still  doesn't  like  it." 

Then  Mr.  Twist  would  turn  his  spectacles  towards 
her  in  mild  inquiry,  and  Anna-Rose,  as  always,  would 
rush  in  and  elaborately  explain  what  Anna-Felicitas 
meant,  which  was  so  remote  from  anything  resembling 
what  she  had  said  that  Mr.  Twist  looked  more  mildly 
inquiring  than  ever. 

IJsually  Anna-Felicitas  didn't  contradict  Anna-Rose," 
being  too  sleepy  or  too  lazy,  but  sometimes  she  did, 
and  then  Anna-Rose  got  angry,  and  would  get  what 
the  Germans  call  a  red  head  and  look  at  Anna-Felicitas 
very  severely  and  say  things,  and  Mr.  Twist  would 
close  his  book  and  watch  with  that  alert,  cocked-up-ear^ 


72  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

look  of  a  sympathetic  and  highly  interested  terrier; 
but  sooner  or  later  the  ship  would  always  give  a  roll, 
and  Anna-Felicitas  would  shut  her  eyes  and  fade  to 
paleness  and  become  the  helpless  bundle  of  sickness 
that  nobody  could  possibly  go  on  being  severe  with. 

The  passengers  in  the  second  class  were  more  gen- 
erally friendly  than  those  in  the  first  class.  The  first 
class  sorted  itself  out  into  little  groups,  and  whispered 
about  each  other,  as  Anna-Rose  observed,  watching  their 
movements  across  the  rope  that  separated  her  from  them. 
The  second  class  remained  to  the  end  one  big  group, 
frayed  out  just  a  little  at  the  edge  in  one  or  two  places. 

The  cliief  fraying  out  was  where  the  Twinlder  kids, 
as  the  second-class  young  men,  who  knew  no  better, 
dared  to  call  them,  interrupted  the  circle  by  talking 
apart  with  Mr.  Twist.  Mr.  Twist  had  no  business 
there.  He  was  a  plutocrat  of  the  first  class;  but  in 
spite  of  the  regulations  which  cut  off  the  classes  from 
communicating,  with  a  view  apparently  to  the  con- 
tinued sanitariness  of  the  first  class,  the  implication 
being  that  the  second  class  was  easily  infectious  and 
probably  overrun,  there  he  was  every  day  and  several 
times  in  every  day.  He  must  have  heavily  squared 
the  oflScials,  the  second-class  young  men  thought  until 
the  day  when  Mr.  Twist  let  it  somehow  be  understood 
that  he  had  known  the  Twinkler  young  ladies  for  years, 
dandled  them  in  their  not  very  remote  infancy  on  his 
already  full-grown  knee,  and  had  been  specially  ap- 
pointed to  look  after  them  on  this  journey. 

Mr.  Twist  did  not  specify  who  had  appointed  him, 
except  to  the  Twinkler  young  ladies  themselves,  and  to 
them  he  announced  that  it  was  no  less  a  thing,  being, 
or  creature,  than  Providence.  The  second-class  young 
men,  therefore,  in  spite  of  their  rising  spirits  as  danger 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         73 

lay  further  behind,  and  their  increasing  tendency, 
peculiar  to  those  who  go  on  ships,  to  become  affec- 
tionate, found  themselves  no  further  on  in  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Misses  Twinkler  the  last  day  of  the  voy- 
age than  they  had  been  the  first.  Not  that,  under  any 
other  conditions,  they  would  have  so  much  as  noticed 
the  existence  of  the  Twinkler  kids.  In  their  blue  caps, 
pulled  down  tight  to  their  eyebrows  and  hiding  every 
trace  of  hair,  they  looked  like  bald  babies.  They  never 
came  to  meals ;  their  assiduous  guardian,  or  whatever  he 
was,  feeding  them  on  deck  with  the  care  of  a  mother- 
bird  for  its  fledglings,  so  that  nobody  except  the  two 
German  ladies  in  their  cabin  had  seen  them  without 
the  caps.  The  young  men  put  them  down  as  half- 
grown  only,  somewhere  about  fourteen  they  thought, 
and  nothing  but  what,  if  they  were  boys  instead  of  girls, 
would  have  been  called  louts. 

Still,  a  ship  is  a  ship,  and  it  is  wonderful  what  can  be 
managed  in  the  way  of  dalliance  if  one  is  shut  up  on  one 
long  enough;  and  the  Misses  Twinkler,  in  spite  of  their 
loutishness,  their  apparent  baldness,  and  their  constant 
round-eyed  solemnity,  would  no  doubt  have  been  the 
objects  of  advances  before  New  York  was  reached  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  Mr.  Twist.  There  wasn't  a  girl  under 
forty  in  the  second  class  on  that  voyage,  the  young 
men  resentfully  pointed  out  to  each  other,  except  these 
two  kids  who  were  too  much  under  it,  and  a  young  lady 
of  thirty  who  sat  manicuring  her  nails  most  of  the  day 
with  her  back  supported  by  a  life-boat,  and  polishing 
them  with  red  stuff  till  they  flashed  rosily  in  the  sun. 
This  young  lady  was  avoided  for  the  first  two  days, 
while  the  young  men  still  remembered  their  mothers, 
because  of  what  she  looked  like;  but  was  greatly  loved 
for  the  rest  of  the  voyage  precisely  for  that  reason. 


74         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

Still,  every  one  couldn't  get  near  her.     She  was  only 
one;  and  there  were  at  least  a  dozen  active,  cooped-up 
young  men  taking,  lithe,  imprisoned  exercise  in  long, 
swift  steps  up  and  down  the  deck,  ready  for  any  sort  of 
enterprise,  bursting  with  energy  and  sea-air  and  spirits. 
So  that  at  last  the  left-overs,  those  of  the  young  men 
the  lady  of  the  rosy  nails  was  less  kind  to,  actually  in 
their  despair  attempted  ghastly  flirtations  with  the  two 
German  ladies.     They  approached  them  with  a  kind  of 
angry  amorousness.     They  tucked  them  up  roughly 
in  rugs.     They  brought  them  cushions  as  though  they 
were  curses.     And  it  was  through  this  rapprochement, 
in  the  icy  warmth  of  which  the  German  ladies  expanded 
like  bulky  flowers  and  grew  at  least  ten  years  younger, 
the  ten  years  they  shed  being  their  most  respectable 
ones,  that  the  ship  became  aware  of  the  nationality  of 
the  Misses  Twinkler. 

The  German  ladies  were  not  really  German,  as  they 
explained   directly   there    were   no    more   submarines 
about,  for  a  good  woman,  they  said,  becomes  auto- 
matically merged  into  her  husband,  and  they,  there- 
fore, were  merged  into  Americans,  both  of  them,  and  as 
loyal  as  you  could  find,  but  the  Twinklers  were  the  real 
thing,  they  said, — real,  unadulterated,  arrogant  Junk- 
ers, which  is  why  they  wouldn't  talk  to  anybody;  for 
no  Junker,  said  the  German  ladies,  thinks  anybody 
good  enough  to  be  talked  to  except  another  Junker. 
The  German  ladies  themselves  had  by  sheer  luck  not 
been  born  Junkers.     They  had  missed  it  very  narrowly, 
but  they  had  missed  it,  for  which  they  were  very  thank- 
ful seeing  what  believers  they  were,  under  the  affec- 
tionate manipulation  of  their  husbands,  in  democracy; 
but  they  came  from  the  part  of  Germany  where  Junk- 
ers most  abound,  and  knew  the  sort  of  thing  well. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  75 

It  seemed  to  Mr.  Twist,  who  caught  scraps  of  con- 
versation as  he  came  and  went,  that  in  the  cabin  the 
Twinklers  must  have  aUenated  sympathy.  They  had. 
They  had  done  more;  they  had  got  themselves  actively 
disliked. 

From  the  first  moment  when  Anna-Rose  had  dared 
to  peep  into  their  shrouded  bunks  the  ladies  had  been 
prejudiced,  and  this  prejudice  had  later  flared  up  into 
a  great  and  justified  dislike.  The  ladies,  to  begin  with, 
hadn't  known  that  they  were  von  Twinklers,  but  had 
supposed  them  mere  Twinklers,  and  the  von,  as  every 
German  knows,  makes  all  the  difference,  especially 
in  the  case  of  Twinklers,  who,  without  it,  were  a  race, 
the  ladies  knew,  of  small  shopkeepers,  laundresses  and 
postmen  in  the  Westphalian  district,  but  with  it  were 
one  of  the  oldest  families  in  Prussia;  known  to  all  Ger- 
mans; possessed  of  a  name  ensuring  subservience  wher- 
ever it  went. 

In  this  stage  of  preliminary  ignorance  the  ladies  had 
treated  the  two  apparently  ordinary  Twinklers  with 
the  severity  their  conduct,  age,  and  obvious  want  of 
means  deserved;  and  when,  goaded  by  their  question- 
ings, the  smaller  and  more  active  Twinkler  had  let  out 
her  von  at  them  much  as  one  lets  loose  a  dog  when  one  is 
alone  and  weak  against  the  attacks  of  an  enemy,  instead 
of  falling  in  harmoniously  with  the  natural  change  of 
attitude  of  the  ladies,  which  became  immediately  per- 
fectly polite  and  conciliatory,  as  well  as  motherly  in  its 
interest  and  curiosity,  the  two  young  Junkers  went 
dumb.  They  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  most 
motherly  questioning.  And  just  in  proportion  as  the 
German  ladies  found  themselves  full  of  eager  milk  of 
kindness,  only  asking  to  be  permitted  to  nourish,  so 
did  they  find  themselves  subsequently,  after  a  day  or 


76  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

two  of  sucli  uncloaked  repugnance  to  it,  left  with  quan- 
tities of  it  useless  on  theijr  hands  and  all  going  sour. 

From  first  to  last  the  Twinklers  annoyed  them.  As 
plain  Twinklers  they  had  been  tiresome  in  a  hundred 
ways  in  the  cabin,  and  as  von  Twinklers  they  were  intol- 
erable in  their  high-nosed  indifference. 

It  had  naturally  been  expected  by  the  elder  ladies  at 
the  beginning  of  the  journey,  that  two  obscure  Twink- 
lers of  such  manifest  youth  should  rise  politely  and  con- 
siderately each  morning  very  early,  and  get  them- 
selves dressed  and  out  of  the  w^ay  in  at  the  most  ten 
minutes,  leaving  the  cabin  clear  for  the  slow  and  careful 
putting  together  bit  by  bit  of  that  which  ultimately 
emerged  a  perfect  specimen  of  a  lady  of  riper  years; 
but  the  weedy  Twinkler  insisted  on  lying  in  her  berth 
so  late  that  if  the  ladies  wished  to  be  in  time  for  the 
best  parts  of  breakfast,  which  they  naturally  and  pas- 
sionately did  wish,  they  were  forced  to  dress  in  her  pres- 
ence, which  was  most  annoying  and  awkward. 
j*^  It  is  true  she  lay  with  closed  eyes,  apparently  apa- 
thetic, but  you  never  know  with  persons  of  that  age. 
Experience  teaches  not  to  trust  them.  They  shut  their 
eyes,  and  yet  seem,  later  on,  to  have  seen;  they  appar- 
ently sleep,  and  afterwards  are  heard  asking  their 
spectacled  American  friend  what  people  do  on  a  ship, 
a  place  of  so  much  gustiness,  if  their  hair  gets  blown  off 
into  the  sea.  Also  the  weedy  one  had  a  most  tiresome 
trick  of  being  sick  instantly  every  time  Odol  was  used, 
or  a  little  brandy  was  drunk.  Odol  is  most  refreshing; 
it  has  a  lovely  smell,  without  which  no  German  bed- 
room is  complete.  And  the  brandy  was  not  common 
schnaps,  but  an  old  expensive  brandy  that,  regarded  as 
a  smell,  was  a  credit  to  anybody's  cabin. 

The  German  ladies  would  have  persisted,  and  indeed 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  77 

did  persist  in  using  Odol  and  drinking  a  little  brandy, 
indifferent  to  the  feeble  prayer  from  the  upper  berth 
which  floated  down  entreating  them  not  to,  but  in  their 
own  interests  they  were  forced  to  give  it  up.  The 
objectionable  child  did  not  pray  a  second  time;  she 
passed  immediately  from  prayer  to  performance.  Of 
two  disagreeables  wise  women  choose  the  lesser,  but 
they  remain  resentful. 

The  other  Twinkler,  the  small  active  one,  did  get  up 
early  and  take  herself  off,  but  she  frequently  mixed 
up  her  own  articles  of  toilet  with  those  belonging  to 
the  ladies,  and  would  pin  up  her  hair,  preparatory  to 
washing  her  face,  with  their  hairpins. 

When  they  discovered  this  they  hid  them,  and  she, 
not  finding  any,  having  come  to  the  end  of  her  own,  lost 
no  time  in  irresolution  but  picked  up  their  nail-scissors 
and  pinned  up  her  pigtails  with  that. 

It  was  a  particularly  sacred  pair  of  nail-scissors 
that  almost  everything  blunted.  To  use  them  for 
anything  but  nails  was  an  outrage,  but  the  grossest 
outrage  was  to  touch  them  at  all.  When  they  told  her 
sharply  that  the  scissors  were  very  delicate  and  she 
was  instantly  to  take  them  out  of  her  hair,  she  tugged 
them  out  in  a  silence  that  was  itself  impertinent, 
and  pinned  up  her  pigtails  with  their  buttonhook 
instead. 

Then  they  raised  themselves  on  their  elbows  in  their 
berths  and  asked  her  what  sort  of  a  bringing  up  she 
could  have  had,  and  they  raised  their  voices  as  well, 
for  though  they  were  grateful,  as  they  later  on  declared, 
for  not  having  been  born  Junkers,  they  had  nevertheless 
acquired  by  practice  in  imitation  some  of  the  more 
salient  Junker  characteristics. 

"You  are  salop/'  said  the  upper  berth  lady, — which 


78  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

is  untranslatable,  not  on  grounds  of  propriety  but  of 
idiom.     It  is  not,  however,  a  term  of  praise. 

"Yes,  that  is  what  you  are — salop/'  echoed  the  lower 
berth  lady.  "And  your  sister  is  salop  too — lying  in  bed 
till  all  hours." 

"It  is  shameful  for  girls  to  be  salop,'^  said  the  upper 
berth. 

"I  didn't  know  it  was  your  buttonhook.  I  thought 
it  was  ours,"  said  Anna-Rose,  pulling  this  out  too  with 
vehemence. 

"That  is  because  you  are  salop,"  said  the  lower 
berth. 

"And  I  didn't  know  it  wasn't  our  scissors  either." 

^' Salop,  Salop,''  said  the  lower  berth,  beating  her 
hand  on  the  wooden  edge  of  her  bunk. 

"And — and  I'm   sorry." 

Anna-Rose's  face  was  very  red.  She  didn't  look 
sorry,  she  looked  angry.  And  so  she  was;  but  it  was 
with  herself,  for  having  failed  in  discernment  and  grown- 
upness.  She  ought  to  have  noticed  that  the  scissors 
and  buttonhook  were  not  hers.  She  had  pounced  on 
them  with  the  ill-considered  haste  of  twelve  years  old. 
She  hadn't  been  a  lady, — she  whose  business  it  was  to 
be  an  example  and  mainstay  to  Anna-Felicitas,  in  all 
things  going  first,  showing  her  the  way. 

She  picked  up  the  sponge  and  plunged  it  into  the 
water,  and  was  just  going  to  plunge  her  annoyed  and 
heated  face  in  after  it  when  the  upper  berth  lady  said: 
"Your  mother  should  be  ashamed  of  herself  to  have 
brought  you  up  so  badly." 

"And  send  you  off  like  this  before  she  has  taught  you 
even  the  ABC  of  manners,"  said  the  lower  berth. 

"Evidently,"  said  the  upper  berth,  "she  can  have 
none  herself." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  79 

"Evidently,"  said  the  lower  berth,  "she  is  herself 
salopJ^ 

The  sponge,  dripping  with  water,  came  quickly  out 
of  the  basin  in  Anna-Rose's  clenched  fist.  For  one 
awful  instant  she  stood  there  in  her  nightgown,  like 
some  bird  of  judgment  poised  for  dreadful  flight,  her 
eyes  flaming,  her  knotted  pigtails  bristling  on  the  top 
of  her  head. 

The  wet  sponge  twitched  in  her  hand.  The  ladies 
did  not  realize  the  significance  of  that  twitching,  and 
continued  to  offer  large  angry  faces  as  a  target.  One  of 
the  faces  would  certainly  have  received  the  sponge  and 
Anna-Rose  have  been  disgraced  for  ever,  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  the  prompt  and  skilful  intervention  of  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

For  Anna-Felicitas,  roused  from  her  morning  lan- 
guor by  the  imusual  loudness  of  the  German  ladies* 
voices,  and  smitten  into  attention  and  opening  of  her 
eyes,  heard  the  awful  things  they  were  saying  and  saw 
the  sponge.  Instantly  she  knew,  seeing  it  was  Anna- 
Rose  who  held  it,  where  it  would  be  in  another  second, 
and  hastily  putting  out  a  shaking  little  hand  from  her 
top  berth,  caught  hold  feebly  but  obstinately  of  the  up- 
right ends  of  Anna-Rose's  knotted  pigtails. 

"I'm  going  to  be  sick,"  she  announced  with  great 
presence  of  mind  and  entire  absence  of  candour. 

She  knew,  however,  that  she  only  had  to  sit  up  in 
order  to  be  sick,  and  the  excellent  child — das  gute  Kind, 
as  her  father  used  to  call  her  because  she,  so  conven- 
iently from  the  parental  point  of  view,  invariably  never 
wanted  to  be  or  do  anything  particularly — without 
hesitation  sacrificed  herself  in  order  to  save  her  sister's 
honour,  and  sat  up  and  immediately  was. 

By  the  time  Anna-Rose  had  done  attending  to  her, 


80  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

all  fury  had  died  out.  She  never  could  see  Anna- 
Felicitas  lying  back  pale  and  exhausted  after  one  of 
these  attacks  without  forgiving  her  and  everybody 
else  everything. 

She  climbed  up  on  the  wooden  steps  to  smoothe  her 
pillow  and  tuck  her  blanket  round  her,  and  when  Anna- 
Felicitas,   her  eyes  shut,  murmured,   "Christopher — 

don't  mind  them "  and  she  suddenly  realized,  for 

they  never  called  each  other  by  those  names  except  in 
great  moments  of  emotion  when  it  was  necessary  to 
cheer  and  encourage,  what  Anna-Felicitas  had  saved 
her  from,  and  that  it  had  been  done  deliberately,  she 
could  only  whisper  back,  because  she  was  so  afraid  of 
crying,  "No,  no,  Columbus  dear — of  course — who  really 

cares  about  them "  and  came  down  off  the  steps 

with  no  fight  left  in  her. 

Also  the  wrath  of  the  ladies  was  considerably  as- 
suaged. They  had  retreated  behind  their  curtains  until 
the  so  terribly  unsettled  Twinkler  should  be  quiet 
again,  and  when  once  more  they  drew  them  a  crack 
apart  in  order  to  keep  an  eye  on  what  the  other  one 
might  be  going  to  do  next  and  saw  her  doing  nothing 
except,  with  meekness,  getting  dressed,  they  merely 
inquired  what  part  of  Westphalia  she  came  from,  and 
only  in  the  tone  they  asked  it  did  they  convey  that  what- 
ever part  it  was,  it  was  anyhow  a  contemptible  one. 

"We  don't  come  from  Westphalia,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
bristling  a  little,  in  spite  of  herself,  at  their  persistent 
baiting. 

Anna-Felicitas  listened  in  cold  anxiousness.  She 
didn't  want  to  have  to  be  sick  again.  She  doubted 
whether  she  could  bear  it. 

"You  must  come  from  somewhere,"  said  the  lower 
berth,  "and  being  a  Twinkler  it  must  be  Westphalia." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  81 

"We  don't  really,"  said  Anna-Rose,  mindful  of 
Anna-Felieitas's  words  and  making  a  great  effort  to 
speak  politely.     "We  come  from  England." 

"England!"  cried  the  lower  berth,  annoyed  by  this 
quibbling.  "You  were  born  in  Westphalia.  All 
Twinklers  are  born  in  Westphalia." 

"Invariably  they  are,"  said  the  upper  berth.  "The 
only  circumstance  that  stops  them  is  if  their  mothers 
happen  to  be  temporarily  absent." 

"But  we  weren't,  really,"  said  Anna-Rose,  continuing 
her  efforts  to  remain  bland. 

"Are  you  pretending — ^pretending  to  z^^,"  said  the 
lower  berth  lady,  again  beating  her  hand  on  the  edge 
of  her  bunk,  "that  you  are  not  German .f^" 

"Our  father  was  German,"  said  Anna-Rose,  driven 
into  a  corner,  "but  I  don't  suppose  he  is  now.  I 
shouldn't  think  he'd  want  to  go  on  being  one  directly 
he  got  to  a  really  neutral  place." 

"Has  he  fled  his  country.^"  inquired  the  lower  berth 
sternly,  scenting  what  she  had  from  the  first  suspected, 
something  sinister  in  the  Twinkler  background. 

"I  suppose  one  might  call  it  that,"  said  Anna-Rose 
after  a  pause  of  consideration,  tying  her  shoe-laces. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  said  the  ladies  with  one  voice, 
feeling  themselves  now  on  the  very  edge  of  a  scandal, 
"he  was  forced  to  fly  from  Westphalia?" 

"I  suppose  one  might  put  it  that  way,"  said  Anna- 
Rose,  again  considering. 

She  took  her  cap  off  its  hook  and  adjusted  it  over 
her  hair  with  a  deliberation  intended  to  assure  Anna- 
Felicitas  that  she  was  remaining  calm.  "  Except  that  it 
wasn't  from  Westphalia  he  flew,  but  Prussia,"  she  said. 

"Prussia.f^"  cried  the  ladies  as  one  woman,  again 
raising  themselves  on  their  elbows. 


82  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"That's  where  our  father  lived,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
staring  at  them  in  her  surprise  at  their  surprise.  "So, 
of  course,  as  he  lived  there,  when  he  died  he  did  that 
there  too." 

"Prussia?"  cried  the  ladies  again.  "He  died. ^^  You 
said  your  father  fled  his  country." 

"No.     You  said  that,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

She  gave  her  cap  a  final  tug  down  over  her  ears  and 
turned  to  the  door.  She  felt  as  if  she  quite  soon  again, 
in  spite  of  Anna-Felicitas,  might  not  be  able  to  be  a 
lady. 

"After  all,  it  is  what  you  do  when  you  go  to  heaven," 
she  said  as  she  opened  the  door,  unable  to  resist,  accord- 
ing to  her  custom,  having  the  last  word. 

"But  Prussia.^"  they  still  cried,  still  button-holing 
her,  as  it  were,  from  afar.  "Then — ^you  were  born  in 
Prussia?" 

"Yes,  but  we  couldn't  help  it,"  said  Anna-Rose; 
and  shut  the  door  quickly  behind  her. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

MR.  TWIST,  who  was  never  able  to  be  anything 
but  kind — he  had  the  most  amiable  mouth  and 
chin  in  the  world,  and  his  name  was  Edward 
— took  a  lively  interest  in  the  plans  and  probable  future 
of  the  two  Annas.  He  also  took  a  lively  and  solicitous 
interest  in  their  present,  and  a  profoundly  sympathetic 
one  in  their  past.  In  fact,  their  three  tenses  interested 
him  to  the  exclusion  of  almost  everything  else,  and  his 
chief  desire  was  to  see  them  safely  through  any  shoals 
there  might  be  waiting  them  in  the  shape  of  Uncle 
Arthur's  friends — ^he  distrusted  Uncle  Arthur,  and 
therefore  his  friends — into  the  safe  and  pleasant  waters 
of  real  American  hospitality  and  kindliness. 

He  knew  that  such  waters  abounded  for  those  who 
could  find  the  tap.  He  reminded  himself  of  that  which 
he  had  been  taught  since  childhood,  of  the  mighty  heart 
of  America  which,  once  touched,  would  take  persons 
like  the  twins  right  in  and  never  let  them  out  again. 
But  it  had  to  be  touched.  It  had,  as  it  were,  to  be  put 
in  connection  with  them  by  means  of  advertisement. 
America,  he  reflected,  was  a  little  deaf.  She  had  to  be 
shouted  to.  But  once  she  heard,  once  she  thoroughly 
grasped     .     .     . 

He  cogitated  much  in  his  cabin — one  with  a  private 
bathroom,  for  Mr.  Twist  had  what  Aunt  Alice  called 
ample  means — on  these  two  defenceless  children.  If 
they  had  been  Belgians  now,  or  Serbians,  or  any  persons 
plainly  in  need  of  relief!    As  it  was,  America  would  be 

83 


84  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

likely,  he  feared,  to  consider  that  either  Germany  or 
England  ought  to  be  looking  after  them,  and  might 
conceivably  remain  chilly  and  uninterested. 

Uncle  Arthur,  it  appeared,  hadn't  many  friends  in 
America,  and  those  he  had  didn't  like  him.  At  least, 
that  was  what  Mr.  Twist  gathered  from  the  conver- 
sation of  Anna-Rose.  She  didn't  positively  assert, 
but  she  very  candidly  conjectured,  and  Mr.  Twist 
could  quite  believe  that  Uncle  Arthur's  friends  wouldn't 
be  warm  ones.  Their  hospitality  he  could  imagine  fleet- 
ing and  perfunctory.  They  would  pass  on  the  Twink- 
lers  as  soon  as  possible,  as  indeed  why  should  they  not.^^ 
And  presently  some  dreary  small  job  would  be  found 
for  them,  some  job  as  pupil -teacher  or  girls'  companion 
in  the  sterile  atmosphere  of  a  young  ladies'  school. 

As  much  as  a  man  of  habitually  generous  impulses 
could  dislike,  ]\Ii\  Twist  dislil^ed  Uncle  Arthur.  Pa- 
triotism was  nothing  at  any  time  to  Mr.  Twist  com- 
pared to  humanity,  and  Uncle  Arthur's  particular  kind 
of  patriotism  was  very  odious  to  him.  To  wreak  it  on 
these  two  poor  aliens !  Mr.  Twist  had  no  words  for  it. 
They  had  been  cut  adrift  at  a  tender  age,  an  age  Mr. 
Twist,  as  a  disciplined  American  son  and  brother,  was 
unable  to  regard  unmoved,  and  packed  off  over  the  sea 
indifferent  to  what  might  happen  to  them  so  long  as 
Uncle  Arthur  knew  nothing  about  it.  Having  flung 
these  kittens  into  the  water  to  swim  or  drown,  so  long 
as  he  didn't  have  to  listen  to  their  cries  while  they  were 
doing  it.  Uncle  Arthur  apparently  cared  nothing. 

All  Mr.  Twist's  chivalry,  of  which  there  was  a  great 
deal,  rose  up  within  him  at  the  thought  of  Uncle  Arthur. 
He  wanted  to  go  and  ask  him  what  he  meant  by  such 
conduct,  and  earnestly  inquire  of  him  whether  he  called 
himself  a  man;  but  as  he  knew  he  couldn't  do  this. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         85 

being  on  a  ship  heading  for  New  York,  he  made  up  for  it 
by  taking  as  much  care  of  the  ejected  nieces  as  if  he 
were  an  uncle  himself, — but  the  right  sort  of  uncle, 
the  sort  you  have  in  America,  the  sort  that  regards 
you  as  a  sacred  and  precious  charge. 

In  his  mind's  eye  Mr.  Twist  saw  Uncle  Arthur  as  a 
typical  bullying,  red-necked  Briton,  with  short  side- 
whiskers.  He  pictured  him  under-sized  and  heavy- 
footed,  trudging  home  from  golf  through  the  soppy  green 
fields  of  England  to  his  trembling  household.  He  was 
quite  disconcerted  one  day  to  discover  from  something 
Anna-Rose  said  that  he  was  a  tall  man,  and  not  fat  at 
all,  except  in  one  place. 

"Indeed,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  hastily  rearranging  his 
mind's-eye  view  of  Uncle  Arthur. 

"He  goes  fat  suddenly,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  waking 
from  one  of  her  dozes.  "As  though  he  had  swallowed 
a  bomb,  and  it  had  stuck  when  it  got  to  his  waistcoat." 

"If  you  can  imagine  it,"  added  Anna-Rose  politely, 
ready  to  explain  and  describe  further  if  required. 

But  Mr.  Twist  could  imagine  it.  He  readjusted  his 
picture  of  Uncle  Arthur,  and  this  time  got  him  right, — 
the  tall,  not  bad-looking  man,  clean-shaven  and  with 
more  hair  a  great  deal  than  he,  Mr.  Twist,  had.  He 
had  thought  of  him  as  an  old  ruffian;  he  now  perceived 
that  he  could  be  hardly  more  than  middle-aged  and 
that  Aunt  Alice,  a  lady  for  whom  he  felt  an  almost 
painful  sympathy,  had  a  lot  more  of  Uncle  Arthur  to 
get  through  before  she  was  done. 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose,  accepting  the  word  middle- 
aged  as  correct.  "Neither  of  his  ends  looks  much  older 
than  yours  do.  He's  aged  in  the  middle.  That's  the 
only  place.     Where  the  bomb  is." 

"I  suppose  that's  why  it's  called  middle-aged,"  said 


86         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Felicitas  dreamily.  "One  middle-ages  first,  and 
from  there  it  just  spreads.  It  must  be  queer,"  she 
added  pensively,  "to  watch  oneself  gradually  rotting." 

These  were  the  sorts  of  observations,  Mr.  Twist 
felt,  that  might  prejudice  his  mother  against  the  twins. 
If  they  could  be  induced  not  to  say  most  of  the  things 
they  did  say  when  in  her  presence,  he  felt  that  his 
house,  of  all  houses  in  America,  should  be  offered  them 
as  a  refuge  whenever  they  were  in  need  of  one.  But  his 
mother  was  not,  he  feared,  very  adaptable.  In  her 
house — it  was  legally  his,  but  it  never  felt  as  if  it  were 
— people  adapted  themselves  to  her.  He  doubted 
whether  the  twins  could  or  would.  Their  leading 
characteristic,  he  had  observed,  was  candour.  They 
had  no  savoir  faire.  They  seemed  incapable  of  any- 
thing but  naturalness,  and  their  particular  type  of 
naturalness  was  not  one,  he  was  afraid,  that  his  mother 
would  understand. 

She  had  not  been  out  of  her  New  England  village, 
a  place  called  briefly,  with  American  economy  of  time, 
Clark,  for  many  years,  and  her  ideal  of  youthful  fem- 
ininity was  still  that  which  she  had  been  herself.  She 
had,  if  unconsciously,  tried  to  mould  Mr.  Twist  also 
on  these  lines,  in  spite  of  his  being  a  boy,  and  owing  to 
his  extreme  considerateness  had  not  yet  discovered  her 
want  of  success.  For  years,  indeed,  she  had  been  com- 
pletely successful,  and  Mr.  Twist  arrived  at  and  em- 
barked on  adolescence  with  the  manners  and  ways  of 
thinking  of  a  perfect  lady. 

Till  he  was  nineteen  he  was  educated  at  home,  as  it 
were  at  his  mother's  knee,  at  any  rate  within  reach  of 
that  sacred  limb,  and  she  had  taught  him  to  reverence 
women;  the  reason  given,  or  rather  conveyed,  being 
that  he  had  had  and  still  was  having  a  mother.     Which 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  87 

he  was  never  to  forget.  In  hours  of  temptation.  In 
hours  of  danger.  Mr.  Twist,  with  his  virginal  white 
mind,  used  to  wonder  when  the  hours  of  temptation 
and  of  danger  would  begin,  and  rather  wish,  in  the 
elegant  leisure  of  his  half-holidays,  that  they  soon 
would  so  that  he  might  show  how  determined  he  was  to 
avoid  them. 

For  the  ten  years  from  his  father's  death  till  he  went 
to  Harvard,  he  lived  with  his  mother  and  sister  and  was 
their  assiduous  attendant.  His  mother  took  the  loss 
of  his  father  badly.  She  didn't  get  over  it,  as  widows 
sometimes  do,  and  grow  suddenly  ten  years  younger. 
The  sight  of  her,  so  black  and  broken,  of  so  daily 
recurring  a  patience,  of  such  frequent  deliberate  bright- 
ening for  the  sake  of  her  children,  kept  Mr.  Twist,  as 
he  grew  up,  from  those  thoughts  which  sometimes 
occur  to  young  men  and  have  to  do  with  curves  and 
dimples.  He  was  too  much  absorbed  by  his  mother  to 
think  on  such  lines.  He  was  flooded  with  reverence  and 
pity.  Through  her,  all  women  were  holy  to  him. 
They  were  all  mothers,  either  actual  or  to  be — after, 
of  course,  the  proper  ceremonies.  They  were  all 
people  for  whom  one  leapt  up  and  opened  doors,  placed 
chairs  out  of  draughts,  and  fetched  black  shawls.  On 
warm  spring  days,  when  he  was  about  eighteen,  he  told 
himself  earnestly  that  it  would  be  a  profanity,  a  terrible 
secret  sinning,  to  think  amorously — yes,  he  supposed 
the  word  was  amorously — while  there  under  his  eyes, 
pervading  his  days  from  breakfast  to  bedtime,  was 
that  mourning  womanhood,  that  lopped  life,  that 
example  of  brave  doing  without  any  hope  or  expecta- 
tion except  what  might  be  expected  or  hoped  from 
heaven.  His  mother  was  wonderful  the  way  she  bore 
things.     There  she  was,  with  nothing  left  to  look  for- 


88  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

ward  to  in  the  way  of  pleasures  except  the  resurrec- 
tion, yet  she  did  not  complain. 

But  after  he  had  been  at  Harvard  a  year  a  change 
came  over  Mr.  Twist.  Not  that  he  did  not  remain 
dutiful  and  affectionate,  but  he  perceived  that  it  was 
possible  to  peep  round  the  corners  of  his  mother,  the 
rock-like  corners  that  had  so  long  jutted  out  between 
liim  and  the  view,  and  on  the  other  side  there  seemed 
to  be  quite  a  lot  of  interesting  things  going  on.  He 
continued,  however,  only  to  eye  most  of  them  from 
afar,  and  the  nearest  he  got  to  temptation  while  at 
Harvard  was  to  read  "Madame  Bovary." 

After  Harvard  he  was  put  into  an  engineering  firm, 
for  the  Twists  only  had  what  would  in  English  money 
be  ^ve  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  belonged  therefore, 
taking  dollars  as  the  measure  of  standing  instead  of 
birth,  to  the  middle  classes.  Aunt  Alice  would  have 
described  such  an  income  as  ample  means;  Mrs.  Twist 
called  it  straitened  circumstances,  and  lived  accord- 
ingly in  a  condition  of  perpetual  self-sacrifice  and  doings 
without.  She  had  a  car,  but  it  was  only  a  car,  not  a 
Pierce- Arrow;  and  there  was  a  bathroom  to  every 
bedroom,  but  there  were  only  six  bedrooms;  and  the 
house  stood  on  a  hill  and  looked  over  the  most  beautiful 
woods,  but  they  were  somebody  else's  woods.  She 
felt,  as  she  beheld  the  lives  of  those  of  her  neighbours 
she  let  her  eyes  rest  on,  who  were  the  millionaires  dotted 
round  about  the  charming  environs  of  Clark,  that  she 
was  indeed  a  typical  widow, — remote,  unfriended, 
melancholy,  poor. 

Mrs.  Twist  might  feel  poor,  but  she  was  certainly 
comfortable.  It  was  her  daughter  Edith's  aim  in  life 
to  secure  for  her  the  comfort  and  leisure  necessary  for 
any  grief  that  wishes  to  be  thorough.     The  house  was 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIMBUS  89 

run  beautifully  by  Edith.  There  were  three  servants, 
of  whom  Edith  was  one.  She  was  the  lady's  maid,  the 
head  cook,  and  the  family  butler.  And  Mr.  Twist, 
till  he  went  to  Harvard,  might  be  described  as  the 
page-boy,  and  afterwards  in  his  vacations  as  the  odd 
man  about  the  house.  •  Everything  centred  round  their 
mother.  She  made  a  good  deal  of  work,  because  of 
being  so  anxious  not  to  give  trouble.  She  wouldn't  get 
out  of  the  way  of  evil,  but  bleakly  accepted  it.  She 
wouldn't  get  out  of  a  draught,  but  sat  in  it  till  one  or 
other  of  her  children  remembered  they  hadn't  shut  the 
door.  When  the  inevitable  cold  was  upon  her  and  she 
was  lamentably  coughing,  she  would  mention  the  door 
for  the  first  time,  and  quietly  say  she  hadn't  liked  to 
trouble  them  to  shut  it,  they  had  seemed  so  busy  with 
their  own  affairs. 

But  after  he  had  been  in  the  engineering  firm  a  little 
while,  a  further  change  came  over  Mr.  Twist.  He 
was  there  to  make  money,  more  money,  for  his  mother. 
The  first  duty  of  an  American  male  had  descended  on 
him.  He  wished  earnestly  to  fulfil  it  creditably,  in 
spite  of  his  own  tastes  being  so  simple  that  his  income 
of  £5000 — it  was  his,  not  his  mother's,  but  it  didn't 
feel  as  if  it  were — would  have  been  more  than  sufficient 
for  him.  Out  of  engineering,  then,  was  he  to  wrest  all 
the  things  that  might  comfort  his  mother.  He  em- 
barked on  his  career  with  as  determined  an  expression 
on  his  mouth  as  so  soft  and  friendly  a  mouth  could  be 
made  to  take,  and  he  hadn't  been  in  it  long  before  he 
passed  out  altogether  beyond  the  line  of  thinking  his 
mother  had  laid  down  for  him,  and  definitely  grew  up. 

The  office  was  in  New  York,  far  enough  away  from 
Clark  for  him  to  be  at  home  only  for  the  Sundays.  His 
mother  put  him  to  board  with  her  brother  Charles,  a 


90  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

clergyman,  the  rector  of  the  Church  of  AngeHc  Refresh- 
ment at  the  back  of  Tenth  Street,  and  the  teapot  out  of 
which  Uncle  Charles  poured  his  tea  at  his  hurried  and 
uncomfortable  meals — for  he  practised  the  austerities 
and  had  no  wife — dribbled  at  its  spout.  Hold  it  as 
carefully  as  one  might  it  dribbled  at  its  spout,  and 
added  to  the  confused  appearance  of  the  table  by 
staining  the  cloth  afresh  every  time  it  was  used. 

Mr.  Twist,  who  below  the  nose  was  nothing  but  kind- 
liness and  generosity,  his  slightly  weak  chin,  his 
lavishly-lipped  mouth,  being  all  amiability  and  affec- 
tion, above  the  nose  was  quite  different.  In  the  middle 
came  his  nose,  a  nose  that  led  him  to  improve  himself, 
to  read  and  meditate  the  poets,  to  be  tenacious  in  follow- 
ing after  the  noble;  and  above  were  eyes  in  which  sim- 
plicity sat  side  by  side  with  appreciation;  and  above 
these  was  the  forehead  like  a  dome;  and  behind  this 
forehead  were  inventions. 

He  had  not  been  definitely  aware  that  he  was  inven- 
tive till  he  came  into  daily  contact  with  Uncle  Charles's 
teapot.  In  his  boyhood  he  had  often  fixed  up  little 
things  for  Edith, — she  was  three  years  older  than  he, 
and  was  even  then  canning  and  preserving  and  ironing, 
— little  simplifications  and  alleviations  of  her  labour; 
but  they  had  been  just  toys,  things  that  had  amused 
him  to  put  together  and  that  he  forgot  as  soon  as  they 
were  done.  But  the  teapot  revealed  to  him  clearly 
what  his  forehead  was  there  for.  He  would  not  and 
could  not  continue,  being  the  soul  of  considerateness, 
to  spill  tea  on  Uncle  Charles's  table-cloth  at  every 
meal — they  had  tea  at  breakfast,  and  at  luncheon,  and 
at  supper — and  if  he  were  thirsty  he  spilled  it  several 
times  at  every  meal.  For  a  long  time  he  coaxed  the 
teapot.     He  was  thoughtful  with  it.     He  handled  it 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  91 

with  the  most  delicate  precision.  He  gave  it  time. 
He  never  hurried  it.  He  never  filled  it  more  than  half 
full.  And  yet  at  the  end  of  every  pouring,  out  came 
the  same  devastating  dribble  on  to  the  cloth. 

Then  he  went  out  and  bought  another  teapot,  one  of 
a  different  pattern,  with  a  curved  spout  instead  of  a 
straight  one. 

The  same  thing  happened. 

Then  he  went  to  Wanamaker's,  and  spent  an  hour 
in  the  teapot  section  trying  one  pattern  after  the  other, 
patiently  pouring  water,  provided  by  a  tipped  but 
languid  and  supercilious  assistant,  out  of  each  different 
make  of  teapot  into  cups. 

They  all  dribbled. 

Then  Mr.  Twist  went  home  and  sat  down  and 
thought.  He  thought  and  thought,  with  his  dome-like 
forehead  resting  on  his  long  thin  hand;  and  what  came 
out  of  his  forehead  at  last,  sprang  out  of  it  as  complete 
in  every  detail  as  Pallas  Athene  when  she  very  simi- 
larly sprang,  was  that  now  well-known  object  on  every 
breakfast  table.  Twist's  Non-Trickier  Teapot. 

In  five  years  Mr.  Twist  made  a  fortune  out  of  the 
teapot.  His  mother  passed  from  her  straitened  cir- 
cumstances to  what  she  still  would  only  call  a  modest 
competence,  but  what  in  England  would  have  been 
regarded  as  wallowing  in  money.  She  left  off  being 
middle-class,  and  was  received  into  the  lower  upper- 
class,  the  upper  part  of  this  upper-class  being  reserved 
for  great  names  like  Astor,  Rockefeller  and  Vanderbilt. 
With  these  Mrs.  Twist  could  not  compete.  She  would 
no  doubt  some  day,  for  Edward  was  only  thirty  and 
there  were  still  coffee-pots;  but  what  he  was  able  to 
add  to  the  family  income  helped  her  for  a  time  to  bear 
the  loss  of  the  elder  Twist  with  less  of  bleakness  in  her 


92  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

resignation.  It  was  as  though  an  east  wind  veered 
round  for  a  brief  space  a  Httle  to  the  south. 

Being  naturally,  however,  inclined  to  deprecation, 
when  every  other  reason  for  it  was  finally  removed  by 
her  assiduous  son  she  once  more  sought  out  and  firmly 
laid  hold  of  the  departed  Twist,  and  hung  her  cherished 
unhappiness  up  on  him  again  as  if  he  were  a  peg.  When 
the  novelty  of  having  a  great  many  bedrooms  instead 
of  six,  and  a  great  deal  of  food  not  to  eat  but  to  throw 
away,  and  ten  times  of  everything  else  instead  of  only 
once,  began  to  wear  off,  Mrs.  Twist  drooped  again,  and 
pulled  the  departed  Twist  out  of  the  decent  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  past,  and  he  once  more  came  to  dinner  in  the 
form  of  his  favourite  dishes,  and  assisted  in  the  family 
conversations  by  means  of  copious  quotations  from  his 
alleged  utterances. 

^Ir.  Tw^ist's  mcome  was  anything  between  sixty  and 
seventy  thousand  pounds  a  year  by  the  time  the  war 
broke  out.  Having  invented  and  patented  the  simple 
device  that  kept  the  table-cloths  of  America,  and  in- 
deed of  Europe,  spotless,  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  receive 
his  percentages;  sit  still,  in  fact,  and  grow  richer.  But 
so  much  had  he  changed  since  his  adolescence  that  he 
preferred  to  stick  to  his  engineering  and  his  office  in 
New  York  rather  than  go  home  and  be  happy  with  his 
mother. 

She  could  not  understand  this  behaviour  in  Edward. 
She  understood  his  behaviour  still  less  when  he  went  off 
to  France  in  1915,  himself  equipping  and  giving  the 
ambulance  he  drove. 

For  a  year  his  absence,  and  the  dangers  he  was  run- 
ning, divided  Mrs.  Twist's  sorrows  into  halves.  Her 
position  as  a  widow  with  an  only  son  in  danger  touched 
the  imagination  of  Clark,  and  she  was  never  so  much 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         93 

called  upon  as  during  this  year.  Now  Edward  was 
coming  home  for  a  rest,  and  there  was  a  subdued  flutter 
about  her,  rather  like  the  stirring  of  the  funeral  plumes 
on  the  heads  of  hearse-horses. 

While  he  was  crossing  the  Atlantic  and  Red-Crossing 
the  Twinklers — this  was  one  of  Anna-Felicitas's  epi- 
grams, and  she  tried  Anna-Rose's  patience  severely  by 
asking  her  not  once  but  several  times  whether  she  didn't 
think  it  funny,  whereas  Anna-Rose  disliked  it  from  the 
first  because  of  the  suggestion  it  contained  that  Mr. 
Twi.<^  t  regarded  what  he  did  for  them  as  works  of  mercy 
— while  Mr.  Twist  was  engaged  in  these  activities,  at 
his  home  in  Clark  all  the  things  Edith  could  think  of 
that  he  used  most  to  like  to  eat  were  being  got  ready. 
There  was  an  immense  slaughtering  of  chickens,  and 
baking  and  churning.  Edith,  who  being  nov/  the  head 
servant  of  many  instead  of  three  was  more  than  double 
as  hard-worked  as  she  used  to  be,  was  on  her  feet  those 
last  few  days  without  stopping.  And  she  had  to  go  and 
meet  Edward  in  New  York  as  well.  Whether  Mrs. 
Twist  feared  that  he  might  not  come  straight  home 
or  whether  it  was  what  she  said  it  was,  that  dear 
Edward  must  not  be  the  only  person  on  the  boat  who 
had  no  one  to  meet  him,  is  not  certain;  what  is  certain 
is  that  when  it  came  to  the  point,  and  Edith  had  to 
start,  Mrs.  Twist  had  diflSculty  in  maintaining  her 
usual  brightness. 

Edith  would  be  a  whole  day  away,  and  perhaps  a 
night  if  the  St.  Luke  got  in  late,  for  Clark  is  five  hours' 
train  journey  from  New  York,  and  during  all  that  time 
Mrs.  Twist  would  be  uncared  for.  She  thought  Edith 
surprisingly  thoughtless  to  be  so  much  pleased  to  go. 
She  examined  her  flat  and  sinewy  form  with  disapproval 
when  she  came  in  hatted  and  booted  to  say  good-bye. 


94  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

No  wonder  nobody  married  Edith.  And  the  money 
wouldn't  help  her  either  now — she  was  too  old.  She 
had  missed  her  chances,  poor  thing. 

Mrs.  Twist  forgot  the  young  man  there  had  been 
once,  years  before,  wnen  Edward  was  still  in  the  school- 
room, who  had  almost  married  Edith.  He  was  a  lusty 
and  enterprising  young  man,  who  had  come  to  Clark 
to  stay  with  a  neighbour,  and  he  had  had  nothing  to 
do  through  a  long  vacation,  and  had  taken  to  drop- 
ping in  at  all  hours  and  interrupting  Edith  m  her 
housekeeping;  and  Edith,  even  then  completely  flat  but 
of  a  healthy  young  uprightness  and  bright  of  eyes  and 
hair,  had  gone  silly  and  forgotten  how  to  cook,  and 
had  given  her  mother,  who  surely  had  enough  sorrows 
already,  an  attack  of  indigestion. 

Mrs.  Twist,  however,  had  headed  the  young  man  off. 
Edith  was  too  necessary  to  her  at  that  time.  She 
could  not  possibly  lose  Edith.  And  besides,  the  only 
way  to  avoid  being  a  widow  is  not  to  marry.  She  told 
herself  that  she  could  not  bear  the  thought  of  poor 
Edith's  running  the  risk  of  an  affliction  similar  to  her 
own.  If  one  hasn't  a  husband  one  cannot  lose  him, 
Mrs.  Twist  clearly  saw.  If  Edith  married  she  would 
certainly  lose  him  unless  he  lost  her.  Marriage  had 
only  two  solutions,  she  explained  to  her  silent  daughter, 
— she  would  not,  of  course,  discuss  with  her  that  third 
one  which  America  has  so  often  flown  to  for  solace  and 
relief, — only  two,  said  Mrs.  Twist,  and  they  were  that 
either  one  died  oneself,  which  wasn't  exactly  a  happy 
thing,  or  the  other  one  did.  It  was  only  a  question 
of  time  before  one  of  the  married  was  left  alone  to 
mourn.  Marriage  began  rosily  no  doubt,  but  it  always 
ended  black.  "And  think  of  my  having  to  see  you  like 
this,^'  she  said,  with  a  gesture  indicating  her  sad  dress. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  95 

Edith  was  intimidated;  and  the  young  man  presently 
went  away  whistling.  He  was  the  only  one.  Mrs. 
Twist  had  no  more  trouble.  He  passed  entirely  from 
her  mind;  and  as  she  looked  at  Edith  dressed  for  going 
to  meet  Edward  in  the  clothes  she  went  to  church  in  on 
Sundays,  she  unconsciously  felt  a  faint  contempt  for  a 
woman  who  had  had  so  much  time  to  get  married  in 
and  yet  had  never  achieved  it.  She  herself  had  been 
married  at  twenty;  and  her  hair  even  now,  after  all  she 
had  gone  through,  was  hardly  more  gray  than  Edith's. 

"Your  hat's  crooked,"  she  said,  when  Edith  straight- 
ened herseK  after  bending  down  to  kiss  her  good-bye; 
and  then,  after  all  unable  to  bear  the  idea  of  being  left 
alone  while  Edith,  with  that  pleased  face,  went  off  to 
New  York  to  see  Edward  before  she  did,  she  asked  her, 
if  she  still  had  a  minute  to  spare,  to  help  her  to  the 
sofa,  because  she  felt  faint. 

"I  expect  the  excitement  has  been  too  much  for 
me,"  she  murmured,  lying  down  and  shutting  her 
eyes;  and  Edith,  disciplined  in  affection  and  attentive- 
Mess,  immediately  took  off  her  hat  and  settled  down  to 
getting  her  mother  well  again  in  time  for  Edward. 

Which  is  why  nobody  met  Mr.  Twist  on  his  arrival 
in  New  York,  and  he  accordingly  did  things,  as  will 
be  seen,  which  he  mightn't  otherwise  have  done. 


CHAPTER  IX 

WHEN  the  St.  Luke  was  so  near  its  journey's 
end  that  people  were  packing  up,  and  the 
word  Nantucket  was  frequent  in  the  scraps  of 
talk  the  twins  heard,  they  woke  up  from  the  un worried 
condition  of  mind  Mr.  Twist's  kindness  and  the  dreamy 
monotony  of  the  days  had  produced  in  them,  and  began 
to  consider  their  prospects  with  more  attention.  This 
attention  soon  resulted  in  anxiety.  Anna-Rose  showed 
hers  by  being  irritable.  Anna-Felicitas  didn't  show  hers 
at  all. 

It  was  all  very  well,  so  long  as  they  were  far  away 
from  America  and  never  quite  sure  that  a  submarine 
mightn't  settle  their  future  for  them  once  and  for  all, 
to  feel  big,  vague,  heroic  things  about  a  new  life  and  a 
new  world  and  they  two  Twinklers  going  to  conquer  it; 
but  when  the  new  world  was  really  upon  them,  and  the 
new  life,  with  all  the  multitudinous  details  that  would 
have  to  be  tackled,  going  to  begin  in  a  few  hours,  their 
hearts  became  uneasy  and  sank  within  them.  Eng- 
land hadn't  liked  them.  Suppose  America  didn't  like 
them  either?  Uncle  Arthur  hadn't  liked  them.  Sup- 
pose Uncle  Arthur's  friends  didn't  like  them  either.^ 
Their  hearts  sank  to,  and  remained  in,  their  boots. 

Round  Anna-Rose's  w^aist,  safely  concealed  beneath 
her  skirt  from  what  Anna-Felicitas  called  the  preda- 
tory instincts  of  their  fellow-passengers,  was  a  chamois- 
leather  bag  containing  their  passports,  a  letter  to  the 
banlc  where  their  £200  was,  a  letter  to  those  friends  of 

96 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         97 

Uncle  Arthur's  who  were  to  be  tried  first,  a  letter  to 
those  other  friends  of  his  who  were  to  be  the  second  line 
of  defence  supposing  the  first  one  failed,  and  ten  pounds 
in  two  £5  notes. 

Uncle  Arthur,  grievously  grumbling,  and  having  pre- 
viously used  in  bed  most  of  those  vulgar  words  that 
made  Aunt  Alice  so  miserable,  had  given  Anna-Rose 
one  of  the  £5  notes  for  the  extra  expenses  of  the  journey 
till,  in  New  York,  she  should  be  able  to  draw  on  the 
£200,  though  what  expenses  there  could  be  for  a  couple 
of  girls  whose  passage  was  paid  Uncle  Arthur  was 
damned,  he  alleged,  if  he  knew;  and  Aunt  Alice  had 
secretly  added  the  other.  This  was  all  Anna-Rose's 
ready  money,  and  it  would  have  to  be  changed  into 
dollars  before  reaching  New  York  so  as  to  be  ready  for 
emergencies  on  arrival.  She  judged  from  the  growing 
restlessness  of  the  passengers  that  it  would  soon  be  time 
to  go  and  change  it.  How  many  dollars  ought  she  to 
get? 

Mr.  Twist  was  absent,  packing  his  things.  She 
ought  to  have  asked  him  long  ago,  but  they  seemed  so 
suddenly  to  have  reached  the  end  of  their  journey. 
Only  yesterday  there  was  the  same  old  limitless  sea 
everywhere,  the  same  old  feeling  that  they  were  never 
going  to  arrive.  Now  the  waves  had  all  gone,  and  one 
could  actually  see  land.  The  New  World.  The  place 
all  their  happiness  or  unhappiness  would  depend  on. 

She  laid  hold  of  Anna-Felicitas,  who  was  walking 
about  just  as  if  she  had  never  been  prostrate  on  a  deck- 
chair  in  her  life,  and  was  goings  to  say  something  appro- 
priate and  encouraging  on  the  Christopher  and  Co- 
lumbus lines;  but  Anna-Felicitas,  who  had  been 
pondering  the  £5  notes  problem,  wouldn't  listen. 

"A  dollar,''   said  Anna-Felicitas,   worrying  it   out, 


§8  CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"isn't  like  a  shilling  or  a  mark,  but  on  the  other  hand 
neither  is  it  like  a  pound." 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose,  brought  back  to  her  im- 
mediate business. 

"It's  four  times  more  than  one,  and  ^ve  times  less 
than  the  other,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "That's  how 
you've  got  to  count.     That's  what  Aunt  Alice  said." 

"Yes.  And  then  there's  the  exchange,"  said  Anna- 
Rose,  frowning.  "As  if  it  wasn't  complicated  enough 
already,  there's  the  exchange.  Uncle  Arthur  said  we 
weren't  to  forget  that." 

Anna-Felicitas  wanted  to  know  what  was  meant  by 
the  exchange,  and  Anna-Rose,  unwilling  to  admit  ig- 
norance to  Anna-Felicitas,  who  had  to  be  kept  in  her 
proper  place,  especially  when  one  was  just  getting  to 
America  and  she  might  easily  become  above  herself, 
said  that  it  was  something  that  varied.  ("The  ex- 
change, you  know,  varies,"  Uncle  Arthur  had  said  when 
he  gave  her  the  £5  note.  "You  must  keep  your  eye 
on  the  variations."  Anna-Rose  was  all  eagerness  to 
keep  her  eye  on  them,  if  only  she  had  known  what  and 
where  they  were.  But  one  never  asked  questions  of 
Uncle  Arthur.  His  answers,  if  one  did,  were  confined 
to  expressions  of  anger  and  amazement  that  one  didn't, 
at  one's  age,  already  know.) 

"Oh,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  for  a  moment  glancing 
at  Anna-Rose  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye,  consider- 
ately not  pressing  her  further. 

"I  wish  Mr.  Twist  would  come,"  said  Anna-Rose 
uneasily,  looking  in  the  direction  he  usually  appeared 
from. 

"We  won't  always  have  Mm,"  remarked  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

"I  never  said  we  would,"  said  Anna-Rose  shortly. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  99 

The  young  lady  of  the  nails  appeared  at  that  moment 
in  a  hat  so  gorgeous  that  the  twins  stopped  dead  to 
stare.  She  had  a  veil  on  and  white  gloves,  and  looked 
as  if  she  were  going  for  a  walk  in  Fifth  Avenue  the 
very  next  minute. 

"Perhaps  we  ought  to  be  getting  ready  too,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"Yes.     I  wish  Mr.  Twist  would  come " 

"Perhaps  we'd  better  begin  and  practise  not  having 
Mr.  Twist,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  as  one  who  addresses 
nobody  specially  and  means  nothing  in  particular. 

"If  anybody's  got  to  practise  that,  it'll  be  you," 
said  Anna-Rose.  "There'll  be  no  one  to  roll  you  up  in 
rugs  now,  remember.     I  won't." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  rolled  up  in  rugs,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas  mildly.  "I  shall  be  walking  about 
New  York." 

"Oh,  you'll  see,"  said  Anna-Rose  irritably. 

She  was  worried  about  the  dollars.  She  was  worried 
about  the  tipping,  and  the  luggage,  and  the  arrival, 
and  Uncle  Arthur's  friends,  whose  names  were  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Clouston  K.  Sack;  so  naturally  she  was  irritable. 
One  is.  And  nobody  knew  and  understood  this  better 
than  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Let's  go  and  put  on  our  hats  and  get  ready,"  she 
said,  after  a  moment's  pause  during  which  she  wondered 
whether,  in  the  interests  of  Anna-Rose's  restoration  to 
calm,  she  mightn't  have  to  be  sick  again.  She  did 
hoj>e  she  wouldn't  have  to.  She  had  supposed  she 
had  done  with  that.  It  is  true  there  were  now  no 
waves,  but  she  knew  she  had  only  to  go  near  the  engines 
and  smell  the  oil.  "Let's  go  and  put  on  our  hats,"  she 
suggested,  slipping  her  hand  through  Anna-Rose's 
arm. 


100        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose  let  herself  be  led  away,  and  they  went  to 
their  cabin;  and  when  they  came  out  of  it  half  an  hour 
later,  no  longer  with  that  bald  look  their  caps  had  given 
them,  the  sun  catching  the  little  rings  of  pale  gold  hair 
that  showed  for  the  first  time,  and  clad,  instead  of  in 
the  disreputable  jerseys  that  they  loved,  in  neat  black 
coats  and  skirts — for  they  still  wore  mourning  when 
properly  dressed — with  everything  exactly  as  Aunt 
Alice  had  directed  for  their  arrival,  the  young  men  of 
the  second  class  could  hardly  believe  their  eyes. 

"You'll  excuse  me  saying  so,"  said  one  of  them  to 
Anna-Felicitas  as  she  passed  him,  "but  you're  looking 
very  well  to-day." 

"I  expect  that's  because  I  am  well,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  amiably. 

Mr.  Twist,  when  he  saw  them,  threw  up  his  hands 
and  ejaculated  "My!" 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  who  was  herself  puzzled 
by  the  difference  the  clothes  had  made  in  Anna-Rose 
after  ten  sohd  days  of  cap  and  jersey,  "I  think  it's  our 
hats.     They  do  somehow  seem  very  splendid." 

"Splendid.?"  echoed  Mr.  Twist.  "Why,  they'd 
make  the  very  angels  jealous,  and  get  pulling  off  their 
haloes  and  kicking  them  over  the  edge  of  heaven." 

"What  is  so  wonderful  is  that  Aunt  Alice  should 
ever  have  squeezed  them  out  of  Uncle  Arthur,"  said 
Anna-Rose,  gazing  lost  in  admiration  at  Anna-Felicitas. 
"He  didn't  disgorge  nice  hats  easily  at  all." 

And  one  of  the  German  ladies  muttered  to  the  other, 
as  her  eye  fell  on  Anna-Felicitas,  ^'Ja^  ja,  die  hat 
Rasse." 

'And  it  was  only  because  it  was  the  other  German 
lady's  hair  that  spent  the  night  in  a  different  part  of  the 
cabin  from  her  head  and  had  been  seen  doing  it  by 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        101 

Anna-Felicitas,  that  she  cavilled  and  was  grudging. 
*^Gewiss,''  she  muttered  back,  **bis  auf  der  Nase.  Die 
Nase  aber  entfremdet  mich.  Die  ist  keine  echte  Junker- 
nase," 

So  that  the  Twinklers  had  quite  a  success,  and  their 
hearts  came  a  little  way  out  of  their  boots;  only  a  little 
way,  though,  for  there  were  the  Clouston  K.  Sacks 
looming  bigger  into  their  lives  every  minute  now. 

Really  it  was  a  beautiful  day,  and,  as  Aunt  Alice 
used  to  say,  that  does  make  such  a  difference.  A  clear 
pale  loveliness  of  light  lay  over  New  York,  and  there 
was  a  funny  sprightliness  in  the  air,  a  delicate  dry 
crispness.  The  trees  on  the  shore,  when  they  got  close, 
were  delicate  too — delicate  pale  gold,  and  green,  and 
brown,  and  they  seemed  so  composed  and  calm,  the 
twins  thought,  standing  there  quietly  after  the  up- 
heavals and  fidgetiness  of  the  Atlantic.  New  York 
was  well  into  the  Fall,  the  time  of  year  when  it  gets 
nearest  to  beauty.  The  beauty  was  entirely  in  the 
atmosphere,  and  the  lights  and  shadows  it  made.  It 
was  like  an  exquisite  veil  flung  over  an  ugly  woman, 
hiding,  softening,  encouraging  hopes. 

Everybody  on  the  ship  was  crowding  eagerly  to  the 
sides.  Everybody  was  exhilarated,  and  excited,  and 
ready  to  be  friendly  and  talkative.  They  all  waved 
whenever  another  boat  passed.  Those  who  knew 
America  pointed  out  the  landmarks  to  those  who  didn't. 
Mr.  Twist  pointed  them  out  to  the  twins,  and  so  did 
the  young  man  who  had  remarked  favourably  on  Anna- 
Felicitas's  looks,  and  as  they  did  it  simultaneously  and 
there  was  so  much  to  look  at  and  so  many  boats  to 
wave  to,  it  wasn't  till  they  bad  actually  got  to  the 
statue  of  Liberty  that  Anna-Rose  remembered  her  £10 
and  the  dollars. 


102        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

The  young  man  was  saying  how  much  the  statue  of 
Liberty  had  cost,  and  the  word  dollars  made  Anna- 
Rose  tm-n  with  a  jump  to  Mr.  Twist. 

"Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  clutching  at  her  chamois- 
leather  bag  where  it  very  visibly  bulged  out  beneath 
her  waistband,  "I  forgot — ^I  must  get  change.  And 
how  much  do  you  think  we  ought  to  tip  the  stewardess? 
I've  never  tipped  anybody  yet  ever,  and  I  wish — ^I 
wish  I  hadn't  to." 

She  got  quite  red.  It  seemed  to  her  dreadful  to 
offer  money  to  someone  so  much  older  than  herself, 
and  who  till  almost  that  very  morning  had  treated  her 
and  Anna-Fehcitas  like  the  naughtiest  of  tiresome 
children.  Surely  she  would  be  most  offended  at  being 
tipped  by  people  such  years  younger  than  herself? 

Mr.  Twist  thought  not. 

"A  dollar,"  said  the  young  man.  "One  dollar. 
That's  the  figure.  Not  a  cent  more,  or  you  girls'U 
get  inflating  prices  and  Wall  Street'll  bust  up." 

Anna-Rose,  not  heeding  him  and  clutching  nervously 
the  place  where  her  bag  was,  told  Mr.  Twist  that  the 
stewardess  hadn't  seemed  to  mind  them  quite  so  much 
last  night,  and  still  less  that  morning,  and  perhaps 
some  Httle  memento — something  that  wasn't  money — — 

"Give  her  those  caps  of  yours,"  said  the  young  man, 
bursting  into  hilarity;  but  indeed  it  wasn't  his  fault 
that  he  was  a  low  young  man. 

Mr.  Twist,  shutting  him  out  of  the  conversation  by 
interposing  a  shoulder,  told  Anna-Rose  he  had  noticed 
stewardesses,  and  also  stewards,  softened  when  journeys 
drew  near  their  end,  but  that  it  didn't  mean  they 
wanted  mementos.  They  wanted  money;  and  he 
would  do  the  tipping  for  her  if  she  liked. 

Anna-Rose  jumped  at  it.     This  tipping  of  the  stew- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        103 

ardess  had  haunted  her  at  intervals  throughout  the 
journey  whenever  she  woke  up  at  night.  She  felt 
that,  not  having  yet  in  her  life  tipped  anybody,  it  was 
very  hard  that  she  couldn't  begin  with  somebody  more 
her  own  size. 

"Then  if  you  don't  mind  coming  behind  the  funnel," 
she  said,  "I  can  give  you  my  £5  notes,  and  perhaps 
you  would  get  them  changed  for  me  and  deduct  what 
you  think  the  stewardess  ought  to  have." 

Mr.  Twist,  and  also  Anna-Felicitas,  who  wasn't 
allowed  to  stay  behind  with  the  exuberant  young  man 
though  she  was  quite  unconscious  of  his  presence,  went 
with  Anna-Rose  behind  the  funnel,  where  after  a  great 
deal  of  private  fumbling,  her  back  turned  to  them,  she 
produced  the  two  much-crumpled  £5  notes. 

"The  steward  ought  to  have  something  too,"  said 
Mr.  Twist. 

"Oh,  I'd  be  glad  if  you'd  do  him  as  well,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  eagerly.  "I  don't  think  I  could  offer  him  a  tip. 
He  has  been  so  fatherly  to  us.  And  imagine  offering 
to  tip  one's  father." 

Mr.  Twist  laughed,  and  said  she  would  get  over 
this  feeling  in  time.  He  promised  to  do  what  was  right, 
and  to  make  it  clear  that  the  tips  he  bestowed  were 
Twinkler  tips;  and  presently  became  back  with  messages 
of  thanks  from  the  tipped — such  polite  ones  from  the 
stewardess  that  the  twins  were  astonished — and  gave 
Anna-Rose  a  packet  of  very  dirty-looking  slices  of 
green  paper,  which  were  dollar  bills,  he  said,  besides 
a  variety  of  strange  coins  which  he  spread  out  on  a 
ledge  and  explained  to  her. 

"The  exchange  was  favourable  to  you  to-day,"  said 
Mr.  Twist,  counting  out  the  money. 

"How  nice  of  it,"  said  Anna-Rose  pwohtely.     "Did 


104        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

you  keep  your  eye  on  its  variations?"  she  added  a  little 
loudly,  with  a  view  to  rousing  respect  in  Anna-Felicitas 
who  was  lounging  against  a  seat  and  showing  a  total 
absence  of  every  kind  of  appropriate  emotion. 

"Certainly,"  said  Mr.  Twist  after  a  slight  pause. 
"I  kept  both  my  eyes  on  all  of  them." 

Mr.  Twist  liad,  it  appeared,  presented  the  steward 
and  stewardess  each  with  a  dollar  on  behalf  of  the  Misses 
Twinkler,  but  because  the  exchange  was  so  favourable 
this  had  made  no  difference  to  the  £5  notes.  Reducing 
each  £5  note  into  German  marks,  which  was  the  way 
the  Twinklers,  in  spite  of  a  year  in  England,  still  dealt 
in  their  heads  with  money  before  they  could  get  a  clear 
idea  of  it,  there  would  have  been  two  hundred  marks; 
and  as  it  took,  roughly,  four  marks  to  make  a  dollar, 
the  two  hundred  marks  would  have  to  be  divided  by 
four;  which,  leaving  aside  that  extra  complication  of 
variations  in  the  exchange,  and  regarding  the  exchange 
for  a  moment  and  for  purposes  of  simplification  as 
keeping  quiet  for  a  bit  and  resting,  should  produce, 
also  roughly,  said  Anna-Rose  a  little  out  of  breath  as 
she  got  to  the  end  of  her  calculation,  fifty  dollars. 

"Correct,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  had  listened  with 
respectful  attention.     "Here  they  are." 

"I  said  roughly,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "It  can't  be 
exactly  fifty  dollars.  The  tips  anyhow  would  alter 
that." 

"Yes,  but  you  forget  the  exchange." 

Anna-Rose  was  silent.  She  didn't  want  to  go  into 
that  before  Anna-Felicitas.  Of  the  two,  she  was  sup- 
posed to  be  the  least  bad  at  sums.  Their  mother  had 
put  it  that  way,  refusing  to  say,  as  Anna-Rose  indus- 
triously tried  to  trap  her  into  saying,  that  she  was  the 
better  of  the  two.     But  even  so,  the  difference  entitled 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        105 

her  to  authority  on  the  subject  with  Anna-Felicitas, 
and  by  dint  of  doing  all  her  calculations  roughly,  as  she 
was  careful  to  describe  her  method,  she  allowed  room 
for  withdrawal  and  escape  where  otherwise  the  inflex- 
ibility of  figures  might  have  caught  her  tight  and  held 
her  down  while  Anna-Felicitas  looked  on  and  was  un- 
able to  respect  her. 

Evidently  the  exchange  was  something  beneficent. 
She  decided  to  rejoice  in  it  in  silence,  accept  whatever 
it  did,  and  refrain  from  asking  questions. 

"So  I  did.  Of  course.  The  exchange,"  she  said, 
after  a  little. 

She  gathered  up  the  dollar  bills  and  began  packing 
them  into  her  bag.  They  wouldn't  all  go  in,  and  she 
had  to  put  the  rest  into  her  pocket,  for  which  also  there 
were  too  many;  but  she  refused  Anna-Felicitas's  offer 
to  put  some  of  them  in  hers  on  the  ground  that  sooner 
or  later  she  would  be  sure  to  forget  they  weren't  her 
handkerchief  and  would  blow  her  nose  with  them. 

"Thank  you  very  much  for  being  so  kind,"  she 
said  to  Mr.  Twist,  as  she  stuffed  her  pocket  full  and 
tried  by  vigorous  patting  to  get  it  to  look  inconspicuous. 
"We're  never  going  to  forget  you,  Anna-F.  and  me. 
We'll  write  to  you  often,  and  we'll  come  and  see  you 
as  often  as  you  like." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  dreamily,  as  she  watched 
the  shore  of  Long  Island  sliding  past.  "Of  course 
you've  got  your  relations,  but  relations  soon  pall,  and 
you  may  be  quite  glad  after  a  while  of  a  little  fresh 
blood." 

Mr.  Twist  thought  this  very  likely,  and  agreed  with 
several  other  things  Anna-Felicitas,  generalizing  from 
Uncle  Arthur,  said  about  relations,  again  with  that 
air  of  addressing  nobody  specially  and  meaning  nothing 


106        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

in  particular,  while  Anna-Rose  wrestled  with  the  obesity 
of  her  pocket. 

*' Whether  you  come  to  see  me  or  not,"  said  Mr. 
Twist,  whose  misgivings  as  to  the  effect  of  the  Twink- 
lers  on  his  mother  grew  rather  than  subsided,  "I  shall 
certainly  come  to  see  you." 

"Perhaps  Mr.  Sack  won't  allow  followers,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas,  her  eyes  far  away.  "Uncle  Arthur 
didn't.  He  wouldn't  let  the  maids  have  any,  so  they 
had  to  go  out  and  do  the  following  themselves.  We 
had  a  follower  once,  didn't  we,  Anna-R.-f^ "  she  continued, 
her  voice  pensive  and  reminiscent.  "He  was  a  friend 
of  Uncle  Arthur's.  Quite  old.  At  least  thirty  or 
forty.  I  shouldn't  have  thought  he  could  follow.  But 
he  did.  And  he  used  to  come  home  to  tea  with  Uncle 
Arthur  and  produce  boxes  of  chocolate  for  us  out  of  his 
pockets  when  Uncle  Arthur  wasn't  looking.  We  ate 
them  and  felt  perfectly  well  disposed  toward  him  till 
one  day  he  tried  to  kiss  one  of  us — I  forget  which. 
And  that,  combined  with  the  chocolates,  revealed  him 
in  his  true  colours  as  a  follower,  and  we  told  him  they 
weren't  allowed  in  that  house  and  urged  him  to  go  to 
some  place  where  they  were,  or  he  would  certainly  be 
overtaken  by  Uncle  Arthur's  vengeance,  and  we  said 
how  surprised  we  were,  because  he  was  so  old  and  we 
didn't  know  followers  were  as  old  as  that  ever." 

"It  seemed  a  very  shady  thing,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
having  subdued  the  swollenness  of  her  pocket,  "to  eat 
his  chocolates  and  then  not  want  to  kiss  him,  but  we 
don't  hold  with  kissing,  Anna-F.  and  me.  Still,  we 
were  full  of  his  chocolates;  there  was  no  getting  away 
from  that.  So  we  talked  it  over  after  he  had  gone,  and 
decided  that  next  day  when  he  came  we'd  tell  him  he 
might  kiss  one  of  us  if  he  still  wanted  to,  and  we  drew 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        107 

lots  which  it  was  to  be,  and  it  was  me,  and  I  filled  myself 
to  the  brim  with  chocolates  so  as  to  feel  grateful  enough 
to  bear  it,  but  he  didn't  come." 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "He  didn't  come  again 
for  a  long  while,  and  when  he  did  there  was  no  follow 
left  in  him.     Quite  the  contrary." 

Mr.  Twist  listened  with  the  more  interest  to  this 
story  because  it  was  the  first  time  Anna-Felicitas  had 
talked  since  he  knew  her.  He  was  used  to  the  inspirit- 
ing and  voluble  conversation  of  Anna-Rose  who  had 
looked  upon  him  as  her  best  friend  since  the  day  he  had 
wiped  up  her  tears;  but  Anna-Felicitas  had  been  too 
unwell  to  talk.  She  had  uttered  languid  and  brief 
observations  from  time  to  time  with  her  eyes  shut  and 
her  head  lolhng  loosely  on  her  neck,  but  this  was  the 
first  time  she  had  been,  as  it  were,  an  ordinary  human 
being,  standing  upright  on  her  feet,  walking  about, 
looking  intelligently  if  pensively  at  the  scenery,  and  in 
a  condition  of  affable  readiness,  it  appeared,  to  converse. 

Mr.  Twist  was  a  born  mother.  The  more  trouble 
he  was  given  the  more  attached  he  became.  He  had 
rolled  Anna-Felicitas  up  in  rugs  so  often  that  to  be  not 
going  to  roll  her  up  any  more  was  depressing  to  him. 
He  was  beginning  to  perceive  this  motherliness  in  him 
himself,  and  he  gazed  through  his  spectacles  at  Anna- 
Felicitas  while  she  sketched  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
follower,  and  wondered  with  an  almost  painful  solici- 
tude what  her  fate  would  be  in  the  hands  of  the  Clouston 
Sacks. 

Equally  he  wondered  as  to  the  other  one's  fate;  for 
he  could  not  think  of  one  Twinkler  without  thinking  of 
the  other.  They  were  inextricably  mixed  together  in 
the  impression  they  had  produced  on  him,  and  they 
dwelt  together  in  his  thoughts  as  one  person  called, 


108        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

generally,  Twinklers.  He  stood  gazing  at  them,  his 
motherly  instincts  uppermost,  his  hearty  yearning  over 
them  now  that  the  hour  of  parting  was  s'o  near  and  his 
carefully  tended  chick^ens  were  going  to  be  torn  from 
benea^th  his  wing.  Mr.  Twist  was  domestic.  He 
was  affectionate.  He  would  have  loved,  though  he 
had  never  known  it,  the  sensation  of  pattering  feet 
about  his  house,  and  small  hands  clinging  to  the  apron 
he  would  never  wear.  And  it  was  entirely  character- 
istic of  him  that  his  invention,  the  invention  that 
brought  him  his  fortune,  should  have  had  to  do  with 
a  teapot. 

But  if  his  heart  was  uneasy  within  him  at  the  pros- 
pect of  parting  from  his  charges  their  hearts  were 
equally  uneasy,  though  not  in  the  same  way.  The 
very  name  of  Clouston  K.  Sack  was  repugnant  to 
Anna-Rose;  and  Anna-Felicitas,  less  quick  at  disliking, 
turned  it  over  cautiously  in  her  mind  as  one  who  turns 
over  an  unknown  and  distasteful  object  with  the  nose 
of  his  umbrella.  Even  she  couldn't  quite  believe  that 
any  good  thing  could  come  out  of  a  name  like  that, 
especially  when  it  had  got  into  their  lives  through 
Uncle  Arthur.  Mr.  Twist  had  never  heard  of  the 
Clouston  Sacks,  which  made  Anna-Rose  still  more 
distrustful.  She  wasn't  in  the  least  encouraged  when 
he  explained  the  bigness  of  America  and  that  nobody 
in  it  ever  knew  everybody — she  just  said  that  every- 
body had  heard  of  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and  her  heart  was 
too  doubtful  within  her  even  to  mind  being  told,  as 
he  did  immediately  tell  her  within  ear-shot  of  Anna- 
Felicitas,  that  her  reply  was  unreasonable. 

Just  at  the  end,  as  they  were  all  three  straining  their 
eyes,  no  one  with  more  anxiety  than  Mr.  Twist,  to  try 
and  guess  which  of  the  crowd  on  the  landing-stage  were 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        109 

the  Clouston  Sacks,  they  passed  on  their  other  side  the 
Vaterland,  the  great  interned  German  liner  at  its  moor- 
ings, and  the  young  man  who  had  previously  been  so 
very  familiar,  as  Anna-Rose  said,  but  who  was  only,  Mr. 
Twist  explained,  being  American,  came  hurrying  boldly 
up. 

"You  mustn't  miss  this,"  he  said  to  Anna-Felicitas, 
actually  seizing  her  by  the  arm.  "Here's  something 
that'll  make  you  feel  home-like  right  away." 

And  he  led  her  off,  and  would  have  dragged  her  off 
but  for  Anna-Felicitas' s  perfect  non-resistance. 

"He  is  being  familiar,"  said  Anna-Rose  to  Mr.  Twist, 
turning  very  red  and  following  quickly  after  him. 
"That's  not  just  being  American.  Everybody  decent 
knows  that  if  there's  any  laying  hold  of  people's  arms 
to  be  done  one  begins  with  the  eldest  sister." 

"Perhaps  he  doesn't  realize  that  you  are  the  elder," 
said  Mr.  Twist.     "Strangers  judge,  roughly,  by  size." 

"I'm  afraid  I'm  going  to  have  trouble  with  her,"  said 
Anna-Rose,  not  heeding  his  consolations.  **It  isn't 
a  sinecure,  I  assure  you,  being  left  sole  guardian  and 
protector  of  somebody  as  pretty  as  all  that.  And  the 
worst  of  it  is  she's  going  on  getting  prettier.  She  hasn't 
nearly  come  to  the  end  of  what  she  can  do  in  that 
direction.  I  see  it  growing  on  her.  Every  Sunday  she's 
inches  prettier  than  she  was  the  Sunday  before.  And 
wherever  I  take  her  to  live,  and  however  out  of  the  way 
it  is,  I'm  sure  the  path  to  our  front  door  is  going  to  be 
black  with  suitors." 

This  dreadful  picture  so  much  perturbed  her,  and  she 
looked  up  at  Mr.  Twist  with  such  worried  eyes,  that  he 
couldn't  refrain  from  patting  her  on  her  shoulder. 
"There,  there,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  and  he  begged  her  to 
be  sure  to  let  him  know  directly  she  was  in  the  least 


110        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUINIBUS 

difficulty,  or  even  perplexity, — "about  the  suitors,  for 
instance,  or  anything  else.  You  must  let  me  be  of  some 
use  in  the  world,  you  know,"  he  said. 

"But  we  shouldn't  like  it  at  all  if  we  thought  you 
were  practising  being  useful  on  us,"  said  Anna-Rose. 
"It's  wholly  foreign  to  our  natures  to  enjoy  being  the 
objects  of  anybody's  philanthropy." 

"Now  I  just  wonder  where  you  get  all  your  long 
words  from,"  said  Mr.  Twist  soothingly;  and  Anna- 
Rose  laughed,  and  there  was  only  one  dimple  in  the 
Twinkler  family  and  Anna-Rose  had  got  it. 

"What  do  you  want  to  get  looking  at  that  for?" 
she  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  when  she  had  edged  through 
the  crowd  staring  at  the  Vaterland,  and  got  to  where 
Anna-Felicitas  stood  listening  abstractedly  to  the  fire- 
works of  American  slang  the  young  man  was  treating 
her  to, — that  terse,  surprising,  swift  hitting-of-the-nail- 
on-the-head  form  of  speech  which  she  was  hearing  in 
such  abundance  for  the  first  time. 

The  American  passengers  appeared  one  and  all  to  be 
rejoicing  over  the  impotence  of  the  great  ship.  Every 
one  of  them  seemed  to  be  violently  pro-Ally,  derisively 
conjecturing  the  feelings  of  the  Vaterland  as  every  day 
under  her  very  nose  British  ships  arrived  and  departed 
and  presently  arrived  again, — the  same  ships  she  had 
seen  depart  coming  back  unharmed,  unhindered  by 
her  country's  submarines.  Only  the  two  German 
ladies,  once  more  ignoring  their  American  allegiance, 
looked  angry.  It  was  incredible  to  them,  simply 
unfassbar  as  they  said  in  their  thoughts,  that  any 
nation  should  dare  inconvenience  Germans,  should  dare 
lay  a  finger,  even  the  merest  friendliest  detaining  one, 
on  anything  belonging  to  the  mighty,  the  inviolable 
Empire.     Well,  these  Americans,  these  dollar-grubbing 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        111 

Yankees,  would  soon  get  taught  a  sharp,  deserved 
lesson — ^but  at  this  point  they  suddenly  remembered 
they  were  Americans  themselves,  and  pulled  up  their 
thoughts  violently,  as  it  were,  on  their  haunches. 

They  turned,  however,  bitterly  to  the  Twinkler  girl 
as  she  pushed  her  way  through  to  her  sister, — ^those 
renegade  Junkers,  those  contemptible  little  apostates — 
and  asked  her,  after  hearing  her  question  to  Anna- 
Felicitas,  with  an  extraordinary  breaking  out  of  pent- 
up  emotion  where  she,  then,  supposed  she  would  have 
been  at  that  moment  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Germany. 

"Not  here  I  think,"  said  Anna-Rose,  instantly 
and  fatally  ready  as  she  always  was  to  answer  back  and 
attempt  what  she  called  reasoned  conversation. 
"There  wouldn't  have  been  a  war,  so  of  course  I 
wouldn't  have  been  here." 

"  Why,  you  wouldn't  so  much  as  have  been  born  with- 
out Germany,"  said  the  lady  whose  hair  came  off,  with 
difficulty  controlling  a  desire  to  shake  this  insolent  and 
perverted  Junker  who  could  repeat  the  infamous  English 
lie  as  to  who  began  the  war.  "You  owe  your  very 
existence  to  Germany.  You  should  be  giving  thanlvs  to 
her  on  your  knees  for  her  gift  to  you  of  life,  instead  of 
jeering  at  this  representative — "  she  flung  a  finger  out 
toward  the  Vaterland— ''this  patient  and  dignified-in- 
temporary-misfortune  representative,  of  her  power." 

"I  wasn't  jeering,"  said  Anna-Rose,  defending  her- 
self and  clutching  at  Anna-Felicitas's  sleeve  to  pull 
her  away. 

"You  wouldn't  have  had  a  father  at  all  but  for 
Germany,"  said  the  other  lady,  the  one  whose  hair 
grew. 

"And  perhaps  you  mil  tell  me,"  said  the  first  one, 
"where  you  would  have  been  tlienr 


112        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"I  don't  believe,"  said  Anna-Rose,  her  nose  in  the 
air,  "I  don't  beheve  I'd  have  ever  been  at  a  loss  for  a 
fatlier." 

The  ladies,  left  speechless  a  moment  by  the  arro- 
gance as  well  as  several  other  things  about  this  answer, 
gave  Anna-Rose  an  opportunity  for  further  reasoning 
with  them,  which  she  was  unable  to  resist.  "There 
are  lots  of  fathers,"  she  said,  "in  England,  who  would 
I'm  sure  have  been  delighted  to  take  me  on  if  Germany 
had  failed  me." 

"England!" 

"Take  you  on!" 

"An  English  father  for  you?  For  a  subject  of  the 
King  of  Prussia.^" 

"I — ^I'm  afraid  I — ^I'm  going  to  be  sick,"  gasped  Anna- 
Felicitas  suddenly. 

"You're  never  going  to  be  sick  in  this  bit  of  bath- 
water. Miss  Twinlder.^"  exclaimed  the  young  man, 
^vith  the  instant  ungrudging  admiration  of  one  who  is 
confronted  by  real  talent.     "My,  what  a  gift!" 

Anna-Rose  darted  at  Anna-Felicitas's  drooping  head, 
that  which  she  had  been  going  to  say  back  to  the  Ger- 
man ladies  dissolving  on  her  tongue.  "Oh  no — no — " 
she  wailed.  "Oh  no — not  in  your  best  hat,  Columbus 
darling — ^you  can't — it's  not  done — and  your  hat' 11 
shake  off  into  the  water,  and  then  there'll  only  be  one 
between  us  and  we  shall  never  be  able  to  go  out  paying 
calls  and  things  at  the  same  time — come  away  and  sit 
down — ^IVIr.  Twist — Mr.  Twist — oh,  please  come " 

Anna-Felicitas  allowed  herself  to  be  led  away,  just 
in  time  as  she  murmured,  and  sat  down  on  the  nearest 
seat  and  shut  her  eyes.  She  was  thanldul  Anna- 
Rose's  attention  had  been  diverted  to  her  so  instantly, 
for  it  would  have  been  very  diflBcult  to  be  sick  with  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        113 

ship  as  quiet  as  one's  own  bedroom.  Nothing  short  of 
the  engine-room  could  have  made  her  sick  now.  She 
sat  keeping  her  eyes  shut  and  Anna-Rose's  attention 
riveted,  wondering  what  she  would  do  when  there  was 
no  ship  and  Anna-Rose  was  on  the  verge  of  hasty  and 
unfortunate  argument.  Would  she  have  to  learn  to 
faint?  But  that  would  terrify  poor  Christopher  so 
dreadfully. 

Anna-Felicitas  pondered,  her  eyes  shut,  on  this 
situation.  Up  to  now  in  her  life  she  had  always  found 
that  situations  solved  themselves.  Given  time.  And 
sometimes  a  little  assistance.  So,  no  doubt,  would 
this  one.  Anna-Rose  would  ripen  and  mellov/.  The 
German  ladies  would  depart  hence  and  be  no  more 
seen;  and  it  was  unlikely  she  and  Anna-Rose  would 
meet  at  such  close  quarters  as  a  ship's  cabin  any  persons 
so  peculiarly  and  unusually  afflicting  again.  All 
situations  solved  themselves;  or,  if  they  showed  signs 
of  not  going  to,  one  adopted  the  gentle  methods  that 
helped  them  to  get  solved.  Early  in  life  she  had  dis- 
covered that  objects  which  cannot  be  removed  or 
climbed  over  can  be  walked  round.  A  little  devious- 
ness,  and  the  thing  was  done.  She  herself  had  in  the 
most  masterly  manner  when  she  was  four  escaped 
church-going  for  several  years  by  a  simple  method, 
that  seemed  to  her  looking  back  very  like  an  inspira- 
tion, of  getting  round  it.  She  had  never  objected  to 
going,  had  never  put  into  words  the  powerful  if  vague 
dislike  with  which  it  filled  her  when  Sunday  after 
Sunday  she  had  to  go  and  dangle  her  legs  helplessly 
for  two  hours  from  the  chair  she  was  put  on  in  the  en- 
closed pew  reserved  for  the  hohe  grdfliche  Herrschaften 
from  the  Slosh. 

Her  father,  a  strict  observer  of  the  correct  and  a 


114        CimiSTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

pious  believer  in  God  for  other  people,  attended  Divine 
Service  as  regularly  as  he  wound  the  clocks  and  paid 
the  accounts.  He  reprdsentierte,  as  the  German  phrase 
weht;  and  his  wife  and  children  were  expected  to 
rcprdscntieren  too.  Which  they  did  uncomplainingly; 
for  when  one  has  to  do  with  determined  husbands  and 
fathers  it  is  quickest  not  to  complain.  But  the  pins 
and  needles  that  patient  child  endured,  Anna-Felicitas 
remembered,  looldng  back  through  the  years  at  the 
bunched-up  figure  on  the  chair  as  at  a  stranger,  were 
sometliing  awful.  The  edge  of  the  chair  just  caught 
her  legs  in  the  pins  and  needles  place.  If  she  had 
been  a  little  bigger  or  a  little  smaller  it  wouldn't  have 
happened;  as  it  was,  St.  Paul  wrestling  with  beasts  at 
Ephesus  wasn't  more  heroic  than  Anna-FeUcitas  per- 
ceived that  distant  child  to  have  been,  silently  Sunday 
after  Sunday  bearing  her  legs.  Then  one  Siuiday  some- 
thing snapped  inside  her,  and  she  heard  her  own  voice 
floating  out  into  the  void  above  the  heads  of  the 
mumbling  worshippers,  and  it  said  with  a  terrible 
distinctness  in  a  sort  of  monotonous  wail:  "I  only 
had  a  cold  potato  for  breakfast," — ^and  a  second  time, 
in  the  breathless  suspension  of  mumbling  that  followed 
upon  this :  "I  only  had  a  cold  potato  for  breakfast," — 
and  a  third  time  she  opened  her  mouth  to  repeat  the 
outrageous  statement,  regardless  of  her  mother's 
startled  hand  laid  on  her  arm,  and  of  Anna-Rose's 
petrified  stare,  and  of  the  lifted  faces  of  the  congrega- 
tion, and  of  the  bent,  scandalized  brows  of  the'pastor, — 
impelled  by  something  that  possessed  her,  unable  to  do 
anything  but  obey  it;  but  her  father,  a  man  of  deeds, 
rose  up  in  his  place,  took  her  in  his  arms,  and  carried 
her  down  the  stairs  and  out  of  the  church.  And  the 
minute  she  found  herself  really  rescued,  and  out  where 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        115 

the  sun  and  wind,  her  well-known  friends,  were  larking 
about  among  the  tombstones,  she  laid  her  cheek  as 
affectionately  against  her  father's  head  as  if  she  were  a 
daughter  to  be  proud  of,  and  would  have  purred  if  she 
had  had  a  purr  as  loudly  as  the  most  satisfied  and  virtu- 
ous of  cats. 

''Mein  Kind,''  said  her  father,  standing  her  up  on  a 
convenient  tomb  so  that  her  eyes  were  level  with  his, 
"is  it  then  true  about  the  cold  potato?" 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  patting  his  face,  pleased 
at  what  her  legs  were  feeling  like  again. 

''Mein  Kind,''  said  her  father,  "do  you  not  know  it  is 
wrong  to  \mV 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  placidly,  the  heavenly 
blue  of  her  eyes,  gazing  straight  into  his,  exactly  like 
the  mild  sky  above  the  trees. 

"No?"  echoed  her  father,  staring  at  her.  "But, 
Kind,  you  know  what  a  lie  is?" 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  gazing  at  him  tenderly 
in  her  satisfaction  at  being  restored  to  a  decent  pair 
of  legs;  and  as  he  still  stood  staring  at  her  she  put  her 
hands  one  on  each  of  his  cheeks  and  squeezed  his  face 
together  and  murmured,  "Oh,  I  do  love  you."  / 


CHAPTER  X 

IOST  in  the  contemplation  of  a  distant  past, 
Anna-Felicitas  sat  with  her  eyes  shut  long 
^  after  she  needn't  have. 
She  had  forgotten  about  the  German  ladies,  and 
America,  and  the  future  so  instantly  pressing  on  her, 
and  was  away  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  again,  where 
bits  of  amber  where  washed  up  after  a  storm,  and  the 
pale  rushes  grew  in  shallow  sunny  water  that  was 
hardly  salt,  and  the  air  seemed  for  ever  sweet  with 
lilac.  All  the  cottage  gardens  in  the  little  village  that 
clustered  round  a  clearing  in  the  trees  had  lilac  bushes 
in  them,  for  there  was  something  in  the  soil  that  made 
lilacs  be  more  wonderful  there  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world,  and  in  May  the  whole  forest  as  far  as  one 
could  walk  was  soaked  with  the  smell  of  it.  After  rain 
on  a  May  evening,  what  a  wonder  it  was;  what  a  won- 
der, that  running  down  the  black,  oozing  forest  paths 
between  wet  pine  stems,  out  on  to  the  shore  to  look  at 
the  sun  setting  below  the  great  sullen  clouds  of  the 
afternoon  over  on  one's  left  where  Denmark  was, 
and  that  lifting  of  one's  face  to  the  exquisite  mingling 
of  the  delicate  sea  smell  and  the  lilac.  And  then  there 
was  home  to  come  back  to  when  the  forest  began  to 
look  too  dark  and  its  deep  silence  made  one's  flesh 
creep — home,  and  a  light  in  the  window  where  one's 
mother  was.  Incredible  the  security  of  those  days,  the 
safe  warmth  of  them,  the  careless  roominess.  .  .  . 
"You  know  if  you  could  manage  to  feel  a  little  better, 

116 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        117 

Anna-F.,"  said  Anna-Rose's  voice  entreatingly  in  her 
ear,  "it's  time  we  began  to  get  off  this  ship." 

Anna-Fehcitas  opened  her  eyes,  and  got  up  all  con- 
fused and  self -reproachful.  Everybody  had  melted 
away  from  that  part  of  the  deck  except  herself  and 
Anna-Rose.  The  ship  was  lying  quiet  at  last  alongside 
the  wharf.  She  had  over-done  being  ill  this  time. 
She  was  ashamed  of  herself  for  having  wandered  off 
so  easily  and  comfortably  into  the  past,  and  left  poor 
Christopher  alone  in  the  difficult  present. 

"I'm  so  sorry,"  she  said  smiling  apologetically,  and 
giving  her  hat  a  tug  of  determination  symbolic  of  her 
being  ready  for  anything,  especially  America.  "I 
think  I  must  have  gone  to  sleep.  Have  you — "  she 
hesitated  and  dropped  her  voice.  "Are  they — are  the 
Clouston  Sacks  visible  yet?" 

"I  thought  I  saw  them,"  said  Anna-Rose,  dropping 
her  voice  too,  and  looking  round  uneasily  over  her 
shoulder.  "I'd  have  come  here  sooner  to  see  how  you 
were  getting  on,  but  I  thought  I  saw  them,  and  they 
looked  so  like  what  I  think  they  will  look  like  that  I 
went  into  our  cabin  again  for  a  few  minutes.  But  it 
wasn't  them.  They've  found  the  people  they  were 
after,  and  have  gone." 

"There's  a  great  crowd  waiting,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 
coming  up,  "and  I  think  we  ought  to  go  and  look  for 
your  friends.  As  you  don't  know  what  they're  like 
and  they  don't  know  what  you're  like  it  may  be  difficult. 
Heaven  forbid,"  he  continued,  "that  I  should  hurry 
you,  but  I  have  to  catch  a  train  if  I'm  to  get  home 
to-night,  and  I  don't  intend  to  catch  it  until  I've 
handed  you  over  safely  to  the  Sacks." 

"Those  Sacks "  began  Anna-Rose;  and  then  she 

finished  irrelevantly  by  remarking  that  it  was  the  de- 


118        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

tails  of  life  that  were  discouraging, — from  wliicli  Anna- 
Felicitas  knew  that  Christopher's  heart  was  once  more 
in  her  boots. 

"Come  along,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  urging  them  to- 
wards the  gangway.  "Anything  you've  got  to  say 
about  life  I  shall  be  glad  to  hear,  but  at  some  time 
when  we're  more  at  leisure." 

It  had  never  occurred  to  either  of  the  twins  that  the 
Clouston  Sacks  would  not  meet  them.  They  had 
taken  it  for  granted  from  the  beginning  that  some  form 
of  Sack,  either  male  or  female,  or  at  least  their  pleni- 
potentiary, would  be  on  the  wharf  to  take  them  away 
to  the  Sack  lair,  as  Anna-Felicitas  alluded  to  the  family 
mansion.  It  was,  they  knew,  in  Boston,  but  Boston 
conveyed  nothing  to  them.  Only  Mr.  Twist  knew 
how  far  away  it  was.  He  had  always  supposed  the 
Sacks  would  meet  their  young  charges,  stay  that  night 
in  New  York,  and  continue  on  to  Boston  next  day. 
The  twins  were  so  certain  they  would  be  met  that  Mr. 
Twist  was  certain  too.  He  had  concluded,  with  a 
growingly  empty  feeling  in  his  heart  as  the  time  of 
separation  drew  near,  that  all  that  now  remained 
for  him  to  do  on  behalf  of  the  Twinklers  was  to  hand 
them  over  to  the  Sacks.  And  then  leave  them.  And 
then  go  home  to  that  mother  he  loved  but  had  for  some 
time  known  he  didn't  like, — go  home  a  bereft  and 
lonely  man. 

But  out  of  the  crowd  on  the  pier,  any  of  whom  might 
have  been  Sacks  for  all  the  Twinklers,  eagerly  scanning 
faces,  knew,  nobody  in  fact  seemed  to  be  Sacks.  At 
least,  nobody  came  forward  and  said,  "Are  you  the 
Twinklers?"  Other  people  fell  into  each  other's 
arms;  the  air  was  full  of  the  noise  of  kissing,  the  loud 
legitimate  kissing  of  relations;  but  nobody  took  any 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        119 

notice  of  the  twins.  For  a  long  while  they  stood  wait- 
ing. Their  luggage  was  examined,  and  Mr.  Twist's  lug- 
gage— only  his  was  baggage — was  examined,  and  the 
kissing  and  exclaiming  crowd  swayed  hither  and 
thither,  and  broke  up  into  groups,  and  was  shot  through 
by  interviewers,  and  got  packed  off  into  taxis,  and 
grew  thinner  and  thinner,  and  at  last  was  so  thin  that 
the  concealment  of  the  Sacks  in  it  was  no  longer  possible. 

There  were  no  Sacks. 

To  the  last  few  groups  of  people  left  in  the  great 
glass-roofed  hall  piled  with  bags  of  wool  and  sulphur, 
Mr.  Twist  went  up  boldly  and  asked  if  they  were  in- 
tending to  meet  some  young  ladies  called  Twinkler. 
His  tone,  owing  to  perturbation,  was  rather  more  than 
one  of  inquiry,  it  almost  sounded  menacing;  and  the 
answers  he  got  were  cold.  He  wandered  about  uncer- 
tainly from  group  to  group,  his  soft  felt  hat  on  the  back 
of  his  head  and  his  brow  getting  more  and  more  puck- 
ered; and  Anna-Rose,  anxiously  looking  on  from  afar, 
became  impatient  at  last  of  these  refusals  of  everybody 
to  be  Sacks,  and  thought  that  perhaps  Mr.  Twist 
wasn't  making  himself  clear. 

Impetuous  by  nature  and  little  given  to  calm  waiting, 
she  approached  a  group  on  her  own  account  and  asked 
them,  enunciating  her  words  very  clearly,  whether  they 
were  by  any  chance  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clouston  Sack. 

The  group,  which  was  entirely  female,  stared  round 
and  down  at  her  in  astonished  silence,  and  shook  its 
heads;  and  as  she  saw  Mr.  Twist  being  turned  away 
for  the  fifth  time  in  the  distance  a  wave  of  red  despair 
came  over  her,  and  she  said,  reproach  in  her  voice  and 
tears  in  her  eyes,  "But  somebody's  got  to  be  the  Sacks.' ' 

Upon  which  the  group  she  was  addressing  stared  at 
her  in  a  more  astonished  silence  than  ever. 


120        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Mr.  Twist  came  up  mopping  his  brow  and  took  her 
arm  and  led  her  back  to  Anna-FeHcitas,  who  was  taking 
care  of  the  luggage  and  had  sat  down  philosophically 
to  await  developments  on  a  bag  of  sulphur.  She 
didn't  yet  know  what  sulphur  looked  like  on  one's 
clothes  after  one  has  sat  on  it,  and  smiled  cheerfully 
and  encouragingly  at  Anna-Rose  as  she  came  towards 
her. 

"There  are  no  Sacks,"  said  Anna-Rose,  facing  the 
truth. 

"It's  exactly  like  that  Uncle  Arthur  of  yours,"  said 
Mr.  Twist,  mopping  his  forehead  and  speaking  almost 
vindictively.  "Exactly  like  him.  A  man  like  that 
would  have  the  sort  of  friends  that  don't  meet  one." 

"Well,  we  must  do  without  the  Sacks,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  rising  from  the  sulphur  bag  with  the  look  of 
serene  courage  that  can  only  dwell  on  the  face  of  one 
who  is  free  from  care  as  to  what  has  happened  to  him 
behind.  "And  it  isn't,"  she  added  sweetly  to  Mr. 
Twist,  "as  if  we  hadn't  got  2/ow." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose,  suddenly  seeing  daylight. 
"Of  course.  What  do  Sacks  really  matter .^^  I  mean, 
for  a  day  or  two.^^  You'll  take  us  somewhere  where  we 
can  wait  till  we've  found  them." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Some  nice  quiet 
old-fashioned  coffee-house  sort  of  place,  like  the  one 
the  Brontes  went  to  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard  the  first 
time  they  were  launched  into  the  world." 

"Yes.     Some  inexpensive  place." 

"Suited  to  the  frugal." 

"Because  although  we've  got  £200,  even  that  will 
need  watching  or  it  will  go." 

During  this  conversation  Mr.  Twist  stood  mopping 
his  forehead.     As  often  as  he  mopped  it  it  broke  out 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        HI 

afresh  and  had  to  be  mopped  again.  They  were  the 
only  passengers  left  now,  and  had  become  very  con- 
spicuous. He  couldn't  but  perceive  that  a  group  of 
officials  with  grim,  locked-up-looking  mouths  were 
eyeing  him  and  the  Twinklers  attentively. 

Always  zealous  in  the  cause  of  virtue,  America  pro- 
vided her  wharves  and  landing-places  with  officials 
specially  appointed  to  guard  the  purity  of  family  life. 
Family  life  obviously  cannot  be  pure  without  a  mar- 
riage being  either  in  it  or  having  at  some  time  or  other 
passed  through  it.  The  officials  engaged  in  eyeing  Mr. 
Twist  and  the  twins  were  all  married  themselves,  and 
were  well  acquainted  with  that  awful  purity.  But 
eye  the  Twist  and  Twinkler  party  as  they  might,  they 
could  see  no  trace  of  marriage  anywhere  about  it. 

On  the  contrary,  the  man  of  the  party  looked  so 
imeasy  that  it  amounted  to  conscious  illegality. 

"Sisters.'^"  said  the  chief  official,  stepping  forward 
abruptly. 

"Eh?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  pausing  in  the  wiping  of  his 
forehead. 

"These  here — "  said  the  official,  jerking  his  thumb 
at  the  twins.     "They  your  sisters?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Twist  stiffly. 

"No,"  said  the  twins,  with  one  voice.  "Do  you 
think  we  look  like  him?" 

"Daughters?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Twist  stiffly. 

"No,"  said  the  twins,  with  an  ever  greater  vigour 
of  repudiation.  "You  cant  really  think  we  look  as 
much  like  him  as  all  that?" 

"Wife  and  sister-in-law?" 
Then  the  Twinklers  laughed.     They  laughed  aloud, 
even  Anna-Rose  forgetting  her  cares  for  a  moment. 


122        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

But  they  were  flattered,  because  it  was  at  least  a  proof 
that  they  looked  thoroughly  grown-up. 

"Then  if  they  ain't  your  sisters,  and  they  ain't  your 
daughters,  and  thej^  ain't  your  wife  and  sister-in-law, 
p'raps  you'll  tell  me " 

"These  young  ladies  are  not  anything  at  all  of  mine, 
sir,"  said  Mr.  Twist  vehemently. 

"Don't  you  get  sir-ing  me,  now,"  said  the  oflScial, 
sticking  out  his  jaw.  "This  is  a  free  country,  and  I'll 
have  no  darned  cheek." 

"These  young  ladies  in  no  way  belong  to  me,"  said 
Mr.  Twist  more  patiently.     "They're  my  friends.'* 

"Oh.  Friends,  are  they?  Then  p'raps  you'll  tell 
me  what  you're  going  to  do  with  them  next." 

"Do  with  them.'^"  repeated  Mr.  Twist,  as  he  stared 
with  puckered  brow  at  the  twins.  "That's  exactly 
what  I  wish  I  knew." 

The  oflScial  scanned  him  from  head  to  foot  with 
triumphant  contempt.  He  had  got  one  of  them,  any- 
how. He  felt  quite  refreshed  already.  There  had 
been  a  slump  in  sinners  the  past  week,  and  he  was  as 
full  of  suppressed  energy  and  as  much  tormented  by  it 
as  an  unexercised  and  overfed  horse.  "Step  this  way," 
he  ordered  curtly,  waving  Mr.  Twist  towards  a  wooden 
erection  that  was  apparently  an  oflBce.  "Oh,  don't  you 
worry  about  the  girls,"  he  added,  as  his  prey  seemed  dis- 
inclined to  leave  them. 

But  Mr.  Twist  did  worry.  He  saw  Ellis  Island 
looming  up  behind  the  two  figures  that  were  looking 
on  in  an  astonishment  that  had  not  yet  had  time 
to  turn  into  dismay  as  he  was  marched  off  out  of 
sight.  "I'll  be  back  in  a  minute,"  he  called  over  his 
shoulder. 

"That's  as  may  be,"  remarked  the  oflScial  grimly. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        123 

But  he  was  back;  if  not  in  a  minute  in  a  little  more 
than  five  minutes,  still  accompanied  by  the  ofl&cial, 
but  an  official  magically  changed  into  tameness  and 
amiability,  desirous  to  help,  instructing  his  inferiors 
to  carry  Mr.  Twist's  and  the  young  ladies'  baggage  to 
a  taxi. 

It  was  the  teapot  that  had  saved  him, — ^that  blessed 
teapot  that  was  always  protruding  itself  benevolently 
into  his  life.  Mr.  Twist  had  identified  himself  with  it, 
and  it  had  instantly  saved  him.  In  the  shelter  of  his 
teapot  Mr.  Twist  could  go  anywhere  and  do  anything 
in  America.  Everybody  had  it.  Everybody  knew 
it.  It  was  as  pervasive  of  America  as  Ford's  cars, 
but  cosily,  quietly  pervasive.  It  was  only  less  visible 
because  it  stayed  at  home.  It  was  more  like  a  wife 
than  Ford's  cars  were.  From  a  sinner  caught  red- 
handed,  Mr.  Twist,  its  amiable  creator,  leapt  to  the 
position  of  one  who  can  do  no  wrong,  for  he  had  not 
only  placed  his  teapot  between  himself  and  judgment 
but  had  accompanied  his  proofs  of  identity  by  a  suitable 
number  of  dollar  bills,  pressed  inconspicuously  into 
the  official's  conveniently  placed  hand. 

The  twins  found  themselves  being  treated  with  dis- 
tinction. They  were  helped  into  the  taxi  by  the 
official  himself,  and  what  was  to  happen  to  them  next 
was  left  entirely  to  the  decision  and  discretion  of  Mr. 
Twist — Si  man  so  much  worried  that  at  that  moment 
he  hadn't  any  of  either.  He  couldn't  even  answer  when 
asked  where  the  taxi  was  to  go  to.  He  had  missed 
his  train,  and  he  tried  not  to  think  of  his  mother's  dis- 
appointment, the  thought  was  so  upsettiug.  But  he 
wouldn't  have  caught  it  if  he  could,  for  how  could  he 
leave  these  two  poor  children? 

"I'm  more  than  ever  convinced,"  he  said,  pushing  his 


124        CHKISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

hat  still  further  off  his  forehead,  and  staring  at  the  back 
of  the  Twinkler  trunks  piled  up  in  front  of  him  next  to 
the  driver,  while  the  disregarded  official  at  the  door 
still  went  on  asking  him  where  he  wished  the  cab  to 
go  to,  *'that  children  should  all  have  parents." 


CHAPTER  XI 

TBDE  hotel  they  were  finally  sent  to  by  the  official, 
goaded  at  last  by  Mr.  Twist's  want  of  a  made- 
up  mind  into  independent  instructions  to  the 
cabman,  was  the  Ritz.  He  thought  this  very  suitable 
for  the  evolver  of  Twist's  Non-Trickier,  and  it  was 
only  when  they  were  being  rushed  along  at  what  the 
twins,  used  to  the  behaviour  of  London  taxis  and  not 
altogether  unacquainted  with  the  prudent  and  police- 
supervised  deliberation  of  the  taxis  of  Berlin,  regarded 
as  a  skid-collision-and-mutilation-provoking  speed,  that 
a  protest  from  Anna-Rose  conveyed  to  Mr.  Twist 
where  they  were  heading  for. 

"An  hotel  called  Ritz  sounds  very  expensive,"  she 
said.  "I've  heard  Uncle  Arthur  talk  of  one  there  is  in 
London  and  one  there  is  in  Paris,  and  he  said  that  only 
damned  American  millionaires  could  afford  to  stay  in 
them.  Anna-Felicitas  and  me  aren't  American  million- 
aires  " 


"Or  damned,"  put  in  Anna-Felicitas. 

" — ^but  quite  the  contrary,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "hadn't 
you  better  take  us  somewhere  else?" 

"Somewhere  like  where  the  Brontes  stayed  in  Lon- 
don," said  Anna-Felicitas  harping  on  this  idea. 
"Where  cheapness  is  combined  with  historical  as- 
sociations." 

"Oh  Lord,  it  don't  matter,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  for 
the  first  time  in  their  friendship  seemed  ruffled. 

"Indeed  it  does,"  said  Anna-Rose  anxiously. 

125 


126        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"You  forget  we've  got  to  husband  our  resources," 
said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"You  mustn't  run  away  with  the  idea  that  because 
we've  got  £200  we're  the  same  as  millionaires,"  said 
Anna-Rose. 

"Uncle  Arthur,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "frequently 
told  us  that  £200  is  a  very  vast  sum;  but  he  equally 
frequently  told  us  that  it  isn't." 

"It  was  when  he  was  talking  about  having  given  it 
to  us  that  he  said  it  was  such  a  lot,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"He  said  that  as  long  as  we  had  it  we  would  be  rich," 
said  Anna-Felicitas,  "but  directly  we  hadn't  it  we  would 
be  poor." 

"So  we'd  rather  not  go  to  the  Ritz,  please,"  said 
Anna-Rose,  "if  you  don't  mind." 

The  taxi  was  stopped,  and  Mr.  Twist  got  out  and 
consulted  the  driver.  The  thought  of  his  Uncle 
Charles  as  a  temporary  refuge  for  the  twins  floated 
across  his  brain,  but  was  rejected  because  Uncle  Charles 
would  speak  to  no  woman  under  fifty  except  from  his 
pulpit,  and  approached  those  he  did  speak  to  with 
caution  till  they  were  sixty.  He  regarded  them  as  one 
of  the  chief  causes  of  modern  unrest.  He  liked  them 
so  much  that  he  hated  them.  He  could  practise 
abstinence,  but  not  temperance.  Uncle  Charles  was 
no  good  as  a  refuge. 

"Well  now,  see  here,"  said  the  driver  at  last,  after 
Mr.  Twist  had  rejected  such  varied  suggestions  of 
something  small  and  quiet  as  the  Waldorf-Astoria,  the 
Plaza  and  the  Biltmore,  "you  tell  me  where  you  want 
to  go  to  and  I'll  take  you  there." 

"I  want  to  go  to  the  place  your  mother  would  stay  in 
if  she  came  up  for  a  day  or  two  from  the  country," 
said  Mr.  Twist  helplessly. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        127 

"Get  right  in  then,  and  I'll  take  you  back  to  the 
Ritz,"  said  the  driver. 

But  finally,  when  his  contempt  for  Mr.  Twist,  of 
whose  identity  he  was  unaware,  had  grown  too  great 
even  for  him  to  bandy  pleasantries  with  him,  he  did 
land  his  party  at  an  obscure  hotel  in  a  street  off  the 
less  desirable  end  of  Fifth  Avenue,  and  got  rid  of  him. 

It  was  one  of  those  quiet  and  cheap  New  York  hotels 
that  yet  are  both  noisy  and  expensive.  It  was  full  of 
foreigners, — real  foreigners,  the  twins  perceived,  not  the 
merely  technical  sort  like  themselves,  but  people  with 
yellow  faces  and  black  eyes.  They  looked  very  seedy 
and  shabby,  and  smoked  very  much,  and  talked  volubly 
in  unknown  tongues.  The  entrance  hall,  a  place  of 
mottled  marble,  with  clerks  behind  a  counter  all  of 
whose  faces  looked  as  if  they  were  masks,  was  thick 
with  them;  and  it  was  when  they  turned  to  stare  and 
whisper  as  Anna-Felicitas  passed  and  Anna-Rose  was 
thinking  proudly,  "Yes,  you  don't  see  anytJbing  like 
that  every  day,  do  you,"  and  herself  looked  fondly  at 
her  Columbus,  that  she  saw  that  it  wasn't  Columbus's 
beauty  at  all  but  the  sulphur  on  the  back  of  her  skirt. 

This  spoilt  Anna-Rose's  arrival  in  New  York.  All 
the  way  up  in  the  lift  to  the  remote  floor  on  which  their 
bedroom  was  she  was  trying  to  brush  it  off,  for  the 
dress  was  Anna-F.'s  very  best  one. 

"That's  all  your  grips,  ain't  it?"  said  the  youth  in 
buttons  who  had  come  up  with  them,  dumping  their 
bags  down  on  the  bedroom  floor. 

"Our  what.f^'-'  said  Anna-Rose,  to  whom  the  expres- 
sion was  new.     "Do  you  mean  our  bags.^" 

"No.     Grips.     These  here,"  said  the  youth. 

"Is  that  what  they're  called  in  America?"  asked 
Anna-Felicitas,  with  the  intelligent  interest  of  a  travel- 


128        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

ler  determined  to  understand  and  appreciate  every- 
thing, while  Anna-Rose,  still  greatly  upset  by  the  con- 
dition of  the  best  skirt  but  unwilling  to  expatiate  upon 
it  before  the  youth,  continued  to  brush  her  down  as 
best  she  could  with  her  handkerchief. 

"I  don't  call  them.  It's  what  they  are,"  said  the 
youth.     "What  I  want  to  know  is,  are  they  all  here?" 

"How  interesting  that  you  don't  drop  your  h's,"  said 
Anna-FeKcitas,  gazing  at  him.  "The  rest  of  you  is  so 
like  no  h's." 

The  youth  said  nothing  to  that,  the  line  of  thought 
being  one  he  didn't  follow. 

"Those  are  all  our — ^grips,  I  think,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
counting  them  round  the  corner  of  Anna-Felicitas's 
skirt.  "Thank  you  very  much,"  she  added  after  a 
pause,  as  he  still  lingered. 

But  this  didn't  cause  him  to  disappear  as  it  would 
have  in  England.  Instead,  he  picked  up  a  metal  bottle 
with  a  stopper  off  the  table,  and  shook  it  and  announced 
that  their  ice- water  bottle  was  empty.  "Want  some 
ice  water .f^"  he  inquired. 

"What  for.?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas. 

"What  for.?"  echoed  the  youth. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Anna-Rose,  who  didn't  care 
about  the  youth's  manner  which  seemed  to  her  familiar, 
"we  don't  want  ice  water,  but  we  should  be  glad  of  a 
little  hot  water." 

"You'll  get  all  you  want  of  that  in  there,"  said  the 
youth,  jerking  his  head  towards  a  door  that  led  into  a 
bathroom.     "It's  ice  water  and  ink  that  you  get  out  of 


me." 


"Really?"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  gazing  at  him  with 
even  more  intelligent  interest,  almost  as  if  she  were 
prepared,  it  being  America,  a  country,  she  had  heard,  of 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        129 

considerable  mechanical  ingenuity,  to  find  his  person 
bristling  with  taps  which  only  needed  turning. 

"We  don't  want  either,  thank  you,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

The  youth  lingered.  Anna-Rose's  brushing  began 
to  grow  vehement.  Why  didn't  he  go?  She  didn't 
want  to  have  to  be  rude  to  him  and  hurt  his  feelings 
by  asking  him  to  go,  but  why  didn't  he?  Anna- 
Felicitas,  who  was  much  too  pleasantly  detached, 
thought  Anna-Rose,  for  such  a  situation,  the  door 
being  wide  open  to  the  passage  and  the  ungetridable 
youth  standing  there  staring,  was  leisurely  taking  off 
her  hat  and  smoothing  her  hair. 

"Suppose  you're  new  to  this  country,"  said  the 
youth  after  a  pause. 

"Brand,"  said  Anna-FeKcitas  pleasantly. 

"Then  p'raps,"  said  the  youth,  "you  don't  know 
that  the  feller  who  brings  up  your  grips  gets  a  tip." 

"Of  course  we  know  that,"  said  Anna-Rose,  standing 
up  straight  and  trying  to  look  stately. 

"Then  if  you  know  why  don't  you  do  it?" 

"Do  it?  "  she  repeated,  endeavouring  to  chill  him  into 
respectfulness  by  haughtily  throwing  back  her  head. 
"Of  course  we  shall  do  it.  At  the  proper  time  and 
place." 

"Which  is,  as  you  must  have  noticed,"  added  Anna- 
Felicitas  gently,  "departure  and  the  front  door." 

"That's  all  right,"  said  the  youth,  "but  that's  only 
one  of  the  times  and  places.  That's  the  last  one. 
Where  we've  got  to  now  is  the  first  one." 

"Do  I  understand,"  said  Anna-Rose,  trying  to  be 
very  dignified,  while  her  heart  shrank  within  her,  for 
what  sort  of  sum  did  one  offer  people  like  this.? — "that 
in  America  one  tips  at  the  beginning  as  well?" 

"Yep,"  said  the  youth.     "And  in  the  middle  too. 


130        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Right  along  through.  Never  miss  an  opportunity,  is 
as  good  a  slogan  as  you'll  get  when  it  conies  to  tipping." 

*'I  believe  you'd  have  liked  Kipps,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  meditatively,  shaking  some  dust  off  her  hat 
and  remembering  the  orgy  of  tipping  that  immortal 
young  man  went  in  for  at  the  seaside  hotel. 

"What  I  like  now,"  said  the  youth,  growing  more 
easy  before  their  manifest  youth  and  ignorance,  "is  tips. 
Guess  you  can  call  it  Ejipps  if  it  pleases  you." 

Anna-Rose  began  to  fumble  nervously  in  her  purse. 
"It's  horrid,  I  think,  to  ask  for  presents,"  she  said  to 
the  youth  in  deep  humiliation,  more  on  his  account  than 
hers. 

"  Presents .f^  I'm  not  asking  for  presents.  I'm  tell- 
ing you  what's  done,"  said  the  youth.  And  he  had 
spots  on  his  face.     And  he  was  repugnant  to  her. 

Anna-Rose  gave  him  what  looked  like  a  shilling.  He 
took  it,  and  remarking  that  he  had  had  a  lot  of  trouble 
over  it  went  away;  and  Anna-Rose  was  still  flushed  by 
this  encounter  when  Mr.  Twist  knocked  and  asked  if 
they  were  ready  to  be  taken  down  to  tea. 

"He  might  have  said  thank  you,"  she  said  indig- 
nantly to  Anna-Felicitas,  giving  a  final  desperate 
brushing  to  the  sulphur. 

"I  expect  he'll  come  to  a  bad  end,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  soothingly. 

They  had  tea  in  the  restaurant  and  were  the  only 
people  doing  such  a  thing,  a  solitary  cluster  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  empty  tables  laid  for  dinner.  It  wasn't  the 
custom  much  in  America,  explained  Mr.  Twist,  to  have 
tea,  and  no  preparations  were  made  for  it  in  hotels  of 
that  sort.  The  very  waiters,  feeling  it  was  a  meal  to 
be  discouraged,  were  showing  their  detachment  from 
it  by  sitting  in  a  corner  of  the  room  playing  dominoes. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        131 

It  was  a  big  room,  all  looking-glasses  and  windows,  and 
the  street  outside  was  badly  paved  and  a  great  noise  of 
passing  motor- vans  came  in  and  drowned  most  of  what 
Mr.  Twist  was  saying.  It  was  an  unlovely  place,  a 
place  in  which  one  might  easily  feel  homesick  and  that 
the  world  was  empty  of  affection,  if  one  let  oneself  go 
that  way.  The  twins  wouldn't.  They  stoutly  refused, 
in  their  inward  recesses,  to  be  daunted  by  these  exter- 
nals. For  there  was  Mr.  Twist,  their  friend  and  stand- 
by, still  with  them,  and  hadn't  they  got  each  other? 
But  they  felt  uneasy  all  the  same;  for  Mr.  Twist, 
though  he  plied  them  with  buttered  toast  and  maca- 
roons and  was  as  attentive  as  usual,  had  a  somnam- 
bulatory  quality  in  his  attention.  He  looked  Kke  a 
man  who  is  doing  things  in  a  dream.  He  looked  like 
one  who  is  absorbed  in  something  else.  His  forehead 
still  was  puckered,  and  what  could  it  be  puckered  about, 
seeing  that  he  had  got  home,  and  was  going  back  to 
his  mother,  and  had  a  clear  and  uncomplicated  future 
ahead  of  him,  and  anyhow  was  a  man? 

"Have  you  got  something  on  your  mind.^"  asked 
Anna-Rose  at  last,  when  he  hadn't  even  heard  a  ques- 
tion she  asked, — he,  the  polite,  the  interested,  the  sym- 
pathetic friend  of  the  journey  across. 

Mr.  Twist,  sitting  tilted  back  in  his  chair,  his  hands 
deep  in  his  pockets,  looked  up  from  the  macaroons  he 
had  been  staring  at  and  said,  "Yes." 

"Tell  us  what  it  is,"  suggested  Anna-Felicitas. 

"You,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Me?" 

"Both  of  you.  You  both  of  you  go  together. 
You're  in  one  lump  in  my  mind.  And  on  it  too," 
finished  Mr.  Twist  ruefully. 

"That's   only   because,"    explained   Anna-Felicitas, 


132        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

**  you've  got  the  idea  we  want  such  a  lot  of  takmg  care 
of.  Get  rid  of  that,  and  you'll  feel  quite  comfortable 
again.     Why  not  regard  us  merely  as  pleasant  friends?  " 

Mr.  Twist  looked  at  her  in  silence. 

"Not  as  objects  to  be  protected,"  continued  Anna- 
Felicitas,  "but  as  co-equals.  Of  a  reasonable  soul  and 
human  flesh  subsisting." 

Mr.  Twist  continued  to  look  at  her  in  silence. 

"We  didn't  come  to  America  to  be  on  anybody's 
mind,"  said  Anna-Rose,  supporting  Anna-Felicitas. 

"We  had  a  good  deal  of  that  in  England,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas.  "For  instance,  we're  quite  familiar 
with  Uncle  Arthur's  mind,  we  were  on  it  so  heavily  and 
so  long." 

"It's  our  fixed  determination,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
*'now  that  we're  starting  a  new  life,  to  get  off  any 
mind  we  find  ourselves  on  instantly. ^^ 

"We  wish  to  carve  out  our  own  destinies,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"We  more  than  wish  to,"  corrected  Anna-Rose, 
"we  intend  to.  What  were  we  made  in  God's  image 
for  if  it  wasn't  to  stand  upright  on  our  own  feet?  " 

"Anna-Rose  and  I  had  given  this  a  good  deal  of 
thought,"  said  Anna-Fehcitas,  "first  and  last,  and 
we're  prepared  to  be  friends  with  everybody,  but  only 
as  co-equals  and  of  a  reasonable  soul  and  human 
flesh  subsisting." 

"I  don't  know  exactly,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  "what  that 
means,  but  it  seems  to  give  you  a  lot  of  satisfaction." 

"It  does.  It's  out  of  the  Athanasian  Creed,  and 
suggests  such  perfect  equality.  If  you'll  regard  us  as 
co-equals  instead  of  as  objects  to  be  looked  after,  you'll 
see  how  happy  we  shall  all  be." 

"Not,"  said  Anna-Rose,  growing  tender,  for  indeed 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        133 

in  her  heart  she  loved  and  clung  to  Mr.  Twist,  "that 
we  haven't  very  much  liked  all  you've  done  for  us  and 
the  way  you  were  so  kind  to  us  on  the  boat, — we've 
been  most  obliged  to  you,  and  we  shall  miss  you  very 
much  indeed,  I  know." 

"But  we'll  get  over  that  of  course  in  time,"  put  in 
Anna-Felicitas,  "and  we've  got  to  start  life  now  in 
earnest." 

"Well  then,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  "will  you  two  Annas 
kindly  tell  me  what  it  is  you  propose  to  do  next?  " 

"Next.f^     After  tea?     Go  and  look  at  the  sights." 

"I  mean  to-morrow,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"To-morrow,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "we  proceed  to 
Boston." 

"To  track  the  Clouston  Sacks  to  their  lair,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"Ah.  You've  made  up  your  minds  to  do  that. 
They've  behaved  abominably,"  said  Mr.  Tv/ist. 

"Perhaps  they  missed  the  train,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
mildly. 

"It's  the  proper  course  to  pursue,"  said  Anna-Rose. 
"To  proceed  to  Boston." 

"I  suppose  it  is,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  again  thinking 
that  the  really  proper  and  natural  course  was  for  him 
to  have  been  able  to  take  them  to  his  mother.  Pity 
one's  mother  wasn't 

He  pulled  himself  up  on  the  brink  of  an  unfiliality. 
He  was  on  the  verge  of  thinking  it  a  pity  one's  mother 
wasn't  a  different  one. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THEN,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  "if  this  is  all  you're 
going  to  see  of  New  York,  this  one  evenmg,  let 
us  go  and  look  at  it." 

He  beckoned  to  the  waiter  who  came  up  with  the 
bill.  Anna-Rose  pulled  out  her  purse.  Mr.  Twist  put 
up  his  hand  with  severe  determination. 

"You're  my  guest,"  he  said,  "as  long  as  I  am  with 
you.  Useless  to  protest,  young  lady.  You'll  not  get 
me  to  belie  my  American  manhood.  I  only  listened 
with  half  an  ear  to  all  the  things  you  both  said  in  the 
taxi,  because  I  hadn't  recovered  from  the  surprise  of 
finding  myself  still  with  you  instead  of  on  the  train  for 
Clark,  and  because  you  both  of  you  do  say  so  very 
many  things.  But  understand  once  and  for  all  that  in 
this  country  everything  female  has  to  be  paid  for  by 
some  man.  I'm  that  man  till  I've  left  you  on  the  Sack 
doorstep,  and  then  it'll  be  Sack — confound  him," 
finished  Mr.  Twist  suddenly. 

And  he  silenced  Anna-Rose's  protests,  which  per- 
sisted and  were  indignant,  by  turning  on  her  with  an 
irascibility  she  hadn't  yet  seen  in  him,  and  inquirmg 
of  her  whether  then  she  really  wished  to  put  him  to 
public  shame.^^  "You  wouldn't  wish  to  go  against  an 
established  custom,  surely,"  he  said  more  gently. 

So  the  twins  gave  themselves  up  for  that  one  evening 
to  what  Anna-Felicitas  called  government  by  wealth, 
otherwise  plutocracy,  while  reserving  complete  freedom 
of  action  in  regard  to  Mr.  Sack,  who  was,  in  their 

134 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        135 

ignorance  of  his  circumstances,  an  unknown  quantity. 
They  might  be  going  to  be  mothers'  helps  in  the  Sack 
menage  for  all  they  knew, — they  might,  they  said,  be 
going  to  be  anything,  from  honoured  guests  to  typists. 

"Can  you  type.^"  asked  Mr.  Twist. 

"No,"  said  the  twins. 

He  took  them  in  a  taxi  to  Riverside  Drive,  and  then 
they  walked  down  to  the  charming  footpath  that  runs 
along  by  the  Hudson  for  three  enchantmg  miles.  The 
sun  had  set  some  time  before  they  got  there,  and  had 
left  a  clear  pale  yellow  sky,  and  a  wonderful  light  on  the 
river.  Lamps  were  being  lit,  and  hung  like  silver  globes 
in  the  thin  air.  Steep  grass  slopes,  and  groups  of  big 
trees  a  little  deeper  yellow  than  the  sky,  hid  that  there 
were  houses  and  a  street  above  them  on  their  right. 
Up  and  down  the  river  steamers  passed,  pierced  with 
light,  their  delicate  smoke  hanging  in  the  air  long  after 
they  had  gone  their  way.  It  was  so  great  a  joy  to 
walk  in  all  this  after  ten  days  shut  up  on  the  St.  Luke 
and  to  see  such  blessed  things  as  grass  and  leaves  again, 
that  the  twins  felt  suddenly  extraordinarily  brisked 
up  and  cheerful.  It  was  impossible  not  to  be  cheerful, 
translated  from  the  St.  Luke  into  such  a  place,  trotting 
along  in  the  peculiar  dry  air  that  made  one  all  tingly. 

The  world  seemed  suddenly  quite  good, — the  sim- 
plest, easiest  of  objects  to  tackle.  All  one  had  to  do 
was  not  to  let  it  weigh  on  one,  to  laugh  rather  than 
cry.  They  trotted  along  humming  bits  of  their  in- 
fancy's songs,  feeling  very  warm  and  happy  inside, 
felicitously  full  of  tea  and  macaroons  and  with  their 
feet  comfortably  on  something  that  kept  still  and  didn't 
heave  or  lurch  beneath  them.  Mr.  Twist,  too,  was 
gayer  than  he  had  been  for  some  hours.  He  seemed 
relieved;  and  he  was.     He  had  sent  a  telegram  to  his 


136        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

mother,  expressing  proper  sorrow  at  being  detained  in 
New  York,  but  giving  no  reason  for  it,  and  promising 
he  would  be  with  her  rather  late  the  next  evening;  and 
he  had  sent  a  telegram  to  the  Clouston  Sacks  saying 
the  Twinklers,  who  had  so  unfortunately  missed  them 
in  New  York,  would  arrive  in  Boston  early  next  after- 
noon. His  mind  was  clear  again  owing  to  the  deter- 
mination of  the  twins  to  go  to  the  Sacks.  He  was 
going  to  take  them  there,  hand  them  over,  and  then  go 
back  to  Clark,  which  fortunately  was  only  three  hours' 
journey  from  Boston. 

If  the  twins  had  shown  a  disinclination  to  go  after 
the  Sacks  who,  in  Mr.  Twist's  opinion,  had  behaved 
shamefully  already,  he  wouldn't  have  had  the  heart  to 
press  them  to  go;  and  then  what  would  he  have  done 
with  them.f^  Their  second  and  last  line  of  defence, 
supposing  they  had  considered  the  Sacks  had  failed 
and  were  to  be  ruled  out,  was  in  California,  a  place  they 
spoke  of  as  if  it  were  next  door  to  Boston  and  New 
York.  How  could  he  have  let  them  set  out  alone  on 
that  four  days'  journey,  with  the  possibility  of  once 
more  at  its  end  not  being  met?  No  wonder  he  had  been 
abstracted  at  tea.  He  was  relieved  to  the  extent  of 
his  forehead  going  quite  smooth  again  at  their  decision 
to  proceed  to  the  Sacks.  For  he  couldn't  have  taken 
them  to  his  mother  without  preparation  and  explana- 
tion, and  he  couldn't  have  left  them  in  New  York  while 
he  went  and  prepared  and  explained.  Great,  reflected 
Mr.  Twist,  the  verb  dropping  into  his  mind  with  the 
aplomb  of  an  inspiration,  are  the  difficulties  that  beset 
a  man  directly  he  begins  to  twinlde.  Already  he  had 
earnestly  wished  to  knock  the  reception  clerk  in  the 
hotel  office  down  because  of,  first,  his  obvious  suspicion 
of  the  party  before  he  had  heard  Mr.  Twist's  name,  and 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       137 

because  of,  second,  his  politeness,  his  confidential 
manner  as  of  an  understanding  sympathizer  with  a  rich 
man's  recreations,  when  he  had.  The  tea,  which  he. 
had  poured  out  of  one  of  his  own  teapots,  had  been  com* 
pletely  spoilt  by  the  knowledge  that  it  was  only  this ' 
teapot  that  had  saved  him  from  being  treated  as  a 
White  Slave  Trafficker.  He  wouldn't  have  got  into 
that  hotel  at  all  with  the  Twinklers,  or  into  any  other 
decent  one,  except  for  his  teapot.  What  a  country, 
Mr.  Twist  had  thought,  fresh  from  his  work  in  France, 
fresh  from  where  people  were  profoundly  occupied  with 
the  great  business  of  surviving  at  all.  Here  he  came 
back  from  a  place  where  civilization  toppled,  where 
deadly  misery,  deadly  bravery,  heroism  that  couldn't 
be  uttered,  staggered  month  after  month  among  ruins, 
and  found  America  untouched,  comfortable,  fat,  still 
with  time  to  worry  over  the  suspected  amorousness  of 
the  rich,  still  putting  people  into  uniforms  in  order  to 
buttonhole  a  man  on  landing  and  cross-question  him 
as  to  his  private  purities. 

He  had  been  much  annoyed,  but  he  too  couldn't 
resist  the  extreme  pleasure  of  real  exercise  on  such  a 
lovely  evening,  nor  could  he  resist  the  infection  of  the 
cheerfulness  of  the  Twinklers.  They  walked  along, 
talking  and  laughing,  and  seeming  to  walk  much  faster 
than  he  did,  especially  Anna-Rose  who  had  to  break 
into  a  run  every  few  steps  because  of  his  so  much  longer 
legs,  his  face  restored  to  all  its  usual  kindliness  as  he 
listened  benevolently  to  their  remarks,  and  just  when 
they  were  beginning  to  feel  as  if  they  soon  might  be 
tired  and  hungry  a  restaurant  with  lamp-hung  gardens 
appeared  as  punctually  as  if  they  had  been  in  Germany, 
that  land  of  nicely  arranged  distances  between  meals. 
They  had  an  extremely  cheerful  little  supper  out  of 


138        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

doors,  with  things  to  eat  that  thrilled  the  Twinklers  in 
their  delicious  strangeness;  heavenly  food,  they  thought 
it  after  the  rigours  of  the  second-class  cooking  on  the 
St.  Luke,  and  the  biggest  ices  they  had  seen  in  their 
lives, — great  dollops  of  pink  and  yellow  divineness. 

Then  Mr.  Twist  took  them  in  a  taxi  to  look  at  the 
illuminated  advertisements  in  Broadway,  and  they 
forgot  everything  but  the  joy  of  the  moment.  What- 
ever the  next  day  held,  this  evening  was  sheer  happiness. 
Their  eyes  shone  and  their  cheeks  flushed,  and  Mr. 
Twist  was  quite  worried  that  they  were  so  pretty. 
People  at  the  other  tables  at  the  restaurant  had  stared 
at  them  with  frank  admiration,  and  so  did  the  people 
in  the  streets  whenever  the  taxi  was  blocked.  On 
the  ship  he  had  only  sometimes  been  aware  of  it, — 
there  would  come  a  glint  of  sunshine  and  settle  on 
Anna-Rose's  little  cheek  where  the  dimple  was,  or  he 
would  lift  his  eyes  from  the  Culture  book  and  sud- 
denly see  the  dark  softness  of  Anna-Felicitas's  eyelashes 
as  she  slept  in  her  chair.  But  now,  dressed  properly, 
and  in  their  dryland  condition  of  cheerful  animation, 
he  perceived  that  they  were  very  pretty  indeed,  and 
that  Anna-Felicitas  was  more  than  very  pretty.  He 
couldn't  help  thinking  they  were  a  most  unsuitable 
couple  to  be  let  loose  in  America  with  only  two  hundred 
pounds  to  support  them.  Two  hundred  pounds  was 
just  enough  to  let  them  slip  about  if  it  should  enter 
their  heads  to  slip  about, — ^go  off  without  explanation, 
for  instance,  if  they  wanted  to  leave  the  Clouston 
Sacks, — but  of  course  ridiculous  as  a  serious  back- 
ground to  life.  A  girl  should  either  have  enough  money 
or  be  completely  dependent  on  her  male  relations. 
As  a  girl  was  usually  young  reflected  Mr.  Twist,  his 
spectacles  with  the  Broadway  lights  in  them  blazing 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        13Sr 

on  the  two  specimens  opposite  him,  it  was  safest  for 
her  to  be  dependent.  So  were  her  actions  controlled, 
and  kept  within  the  bounds  of  wisdom. 

And  next  morning,  as  he  sat  waiting  for  the  twins 
for  breakfast  at  ten  o'clock  according  to  arrangement 
the  night  before,  their  grape-fruit  in  little  beds  of  ice 
on  their  plates  and  every  sort  of  American  dish  ordered, 
from  griddle  cakes  and  molasses  to  chicken  pie,  a  page 
came  in  with  loud  cries  for  Mr.  Twist,  which  made  him 
instantly  conspicuous — a  thing  he  particularly  dis- 
liked— and  handed  him  a  letter. 

The  twins  had  gone. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THEY  had  left  early  that  morning  for  Boston, 
determined,  as  they  wrote,  no  longer  to  trespass 
on  his  kindness.  There  had  been  a  discussion 
in  their  bedroom  the  night  before  when  they  got  back, 
in  which  Anna-Rose  supplied  the  heat  and  Anna- 
Felicitas  the  arguments,  and  it  ended  in  Anna-Felicitas 
succeeding  in  restoring  Anna-Rose  to  her  original 
standpoint  of  proud  independence,  from  which,  lured 
by  the  comfort  and  security  of  Mr.  Twist's  compan- 
ionship, she  had  been  inclined  to  slip. 

It  took  some  time,  because  of  Anna-Rose  being  the 
eldest.  Anna-Felicitas  had  had  to  be  as  wary,  and 
gentle,  and  persistently  affectionate  as  a  wife  whom 
necessity  compels  to  try  and  get  reason  into  her  hus- 
band. Anna-Rose's  feathers,  even  as  the  feathers  of  a 
husband,  bristled  at  the  mere  breath  of  criticism  of  her 
superior  intelligence  and  wisdom.  She  was  the  leader 
of  the  party,  the  head  and  guide,  the  one  who  had  the 
dollars  in  her  pocket,  and  being  the  eldest  naturally 
must  know  best.  Besides,  she  was  secretly  nervous 
about  taking  Anna-Felicitas  about  alone.  She  too 
had  observed  the  stares  of  the  public,  and  had  never 
supposed  that  any  of  them  might  be  for  her.  How 
was  she  to  get  to  Boston  successfully  with  so  enchanting 
a  creature,  through  all  the  complications  of  travel 
in  an  unknown  country,  without  the  support  and 
counsel  of  Mr.  Twist?  Just  the  dollars  and  quarters 
and  dimes  and  cents  cowed  her.     The  strangeness  of 

140 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        141 

everything,  while  it  delighted  her  so  long  as  she  could 
peep  at  it  from  behind  Mr.  Twist,  appalled  her  the 
minute  she  was  left  alone  with  it.  America  seemed 
altogether  a  foreign  country,  a  strange  place  whose 
inhabitants  by  accident  didn't  talk  in  a  strange  lan- 
guage. They  talked  English;  or  rather  what  sounded 
like  English  till  you  found  that  it  wasn't  really. 

But  Anna-Felicitas  prevailed.  She  had  all  Anna- 
Rose's  inborn  horror  of  accepting  money  or  other 
benefits  from  people  who  had  no  natural  right  to  exer- 
cise their  benevolences  upon  her,  to  appeal  to.  Chris- 
topher, after  long  wrestling  restored  at  last  to  pride, 
did  sit  down  and  write  the  letter  that  so  much  spoilt 
Mr.  Twist's  breakfast  next  morning,  while  Columbus 
slouched  about  the  room  suggesting  sentences. 

It  was  a  letter  profuse  in  thanlcs  for  all  Mr.  Twist 
had  done  for  them,  and  couched  in  language  that  be- 
trayed the  particular  share  Anna-Felicitas  had  taken 
in  the  plan;  for  though  they  both  loved  long  words 
Anna-Felicitas's  were  always  a  little  the  longer.  In 
rolling  sentences  that  made  Mr.  Twist  laugh  in  spite 
of  his  concern,  they  pointed  out  that  his  first  duty  was 
to  his  mother,  and  his  second  was  not  to  squander  his 
possessions  in  paying  the  hotel  and  railway  bills  of 
persons  who  had  no  sort  of  claim  on  him,  except  those 
general  claims  of  humanity  which  he  had  already  on  the 
St.  Luke  so  amply  discharged.  They  would  refrain 
from  paying  their  hotel  bill,  remembering  his  words  as 
to  the  custom  of  the  country,  though  their  instincts  were 
altogether  against  this  course,  but  they  could  and  would 
avoid  causing  him  the  further  expense  and  trouble  and 
waste  of  his  no  doubt  valuable  time  of  taking  them  to 
Boston,  by  the  simple  process  of  going  there  without 
him.    They  promised  to  write  from  the  Sacks  and  let 


142        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

him  know  of  their  arrival  to  the  address  at  Clark  he  had 
given  them,  and  they  would  never  forget  him  as  long 
as  they  lived  and  remained  his  very  sincerely,  A.-R. 
and  A.-F.  Twinkler. 

i\Ir.  Twist  hurried  out  to  the  office. 

The  clerk  who  had  been  so  confidential  in  his  manner 
the  evening  before  looked  at  him  curiously.  Yes,  the 
young  ladies  had  left  on  the  8.15  for  Boston.  They 
had  come  downstairs,  baggage  and  all,  at  seven  o'clock, 
had  asked  for  a  taxi,  had  said  they  wished  to  go  to 
Boston,  inquired  about  the  station,  etc.,  and  had 
specially  requested  that  Mr.  Twist  should  not  be 
disturbed. 

"They  seemed  in  a  slight  hurry  to  be  off,"  said  the 
clerk,  "and  didn't  like  there  being  no  train  before  the 
8.15.  I  thought  you  knew  all  about  it,  Mr.  Twist," 
he  added  inquisitively. 

"So  I  did — so  I  did,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  turning  away 
to  go  back  to  his  breakfast  for  three. 

"So  he  did — ^so  he  did,"  muttered  the  clerk  with  a 
wink  to  the  other  clerk;  and  for  a  few  minutes  they 
whispered,  judging  from  the  expressions  on  their 
faces,  what  appeared  to  be  very  exciting  things  to 
each  other. 

Meanwhile  the  twins,  after  a  brief  struggle  of  extraor- 
dinary intensity  at  the  station  in  getting  their  tickets, 
trying  to  understand  the  black  man  who  seized  and 
dealt  with  their  luggage,  and  closely  following  him 
"wherever  he  went  in  case  he  should  disappear,  were 
sitting  in  a  state  of  relaxation  and  relief  in  the  Boston 
express,  their  troubles  over  for  at  least  several  hours. 

The  black  porter,  whose  heart  happened  not  to  be 
black  and  who  had  children  of  his  own,  perceived  the 
helpless  ignorance  that  lay  behind  the  twins'  assump- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        143 

tion  of  severe  dignity,  and  took  them  in  hand  and  got 
seats  for  them  in  the  parlour  car.  As  they  knew  noth- 
ing about  cars,  parlour  or  otherwise,  but  had  merely 
and  quite  uselessly  reiterated  to  the  booking-clerk,  till 
their  porter  intervened,  that  they  wanted  third-class 
tickets,  they  accepted  these  seats,  thankful  in  the  press 
and  noise  round  them  to  get  anything  so  roomy  and 
calm  as  these  dignified  arm-chairs;  and  it  wasn't  till 
they  had  been  in  them  some  time,  their  feet  on  green 
footstools,  with  attendants  offering  them  fruit  and 
chocolates  and  magazines  at  intervals  just  as  if  they 
had  been  in  heaven,  as  Anna-Felicitas  remarked  admir- 
ingly, that  counting  their  money  they  discovered  what 
a  hole  the  journey  had  made  in  it.  But  they  were  too 
much  relieved  at  having  accomplished  so  much  on 
their  own,  quite  uphelped  for  the  first  time  since  leaving 
Aunt  Alice,  to  take  it  particularly  to  heart;  and,  as 
Anna-Felicitas  said,  there  was  still  the  £200,  and,  as 
Anna-Rose  said,  it  wasn't  lil^ely  they'd  go  in  a  train 
again  for  ages;  and  anyhow,  as  Anna-Felicitas  said, 
whatever  it  had  cost  they  were  bound  to  get  away  from 
being  constant  drains  on  Mr.  Twist's  purse. 

The  train  journey  delighted  them.  To  sit  so  com- 
fortably and  privately  in  chairs  that  twisted  round, 
so  that  if  a  passenger  should  start  staring  at  Anna- 
Felicitas  one  could  make  her  turn  her  back  altogether 
on  him;  to  have  one's  feet  on  footstools  when  they 
were  the  sort  of  feet  that  don't  reach  the  ground;  to  see 
the  lovely  autumn  country  flying  past,  hills  and  woods 
and  fields  and  gardens  golden  in  the  October  sun,  while 
the  horrible  Atlantic  was  nowhere  in  sight;  to  pass 
through  towns  so  queerly  reminiscent  of  English  and 
German  towns  shaken  up  together  and  yet  not  a  bit 
like  either;  to  be  able  to  have  the  window  wide  open 


144        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

without  getting  soot  in  one's  eyes  because  one  of  the 
ministering  angels — clad,  this  one,  appropriately  to 
heaven,  in  white,  though  otherwise  black — ^pulled  up 
the  same  sort  of  wire  screen  they  used  to  have  in  the 
windows  at  home  to  keep  out  the  mosquitoes;  to  imi- 
tate about  twelve,  when  they  grew  bold  because  they 
were  so  hungry,  the  other  passengers  and  cause  the 
black  angel  to  spread  a  little  table  between  them  and 
bring  clam  broth,  which  they  ordered  in  a  spirit  of 
adventure  and  curiosity  and  concealed  from  each  other 
that  they  didn't  like;  to  have  the  young  man  who 
passed  up  and  down  with  the  candy,  and  whose  mouth 
was  full  of  it,  grow  so  friendly  that  he  offered  them 
toffee  from  his  own  private  supply  at  last  when  they 
had  refused  regretfully  a  dozen  suggestions  to  buy — 
"Have  a  bit,"  he  said,  thrusting  it  under  their  noses. 
"As  a  gentleman  to  ladies — no  pecuniary  obligations — 
come  on,  now;"  all  this  was  to  the  twins  too  interestifig 
and  delightful  for  words. 

They  accepted  the  toffee  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was 
offered,  and  since  nobody  can  eat  somebody's  toffee 
without  being  pleasant  in  return,  intermittent  ameni- 
ties passed  between  them  and  the  young  man  as  he 
journeyed  up  and  down  through  the  cars. 

"First  visit  to  the  States?"  he  inquired,  when  with 
some  reluctance,  for  presently  it  appeared  to  the  twins 
that  the  clam  broth  and  the  toffee  didn't  seem  to  be 
liking  each  other  now  they  had  got  together  inside 
them,  and  also  for  fear  of  hurting  his  feelings  if  they 
refused,  they  took  some  more. 

They  nodded  and  smiled  stickily. 

"English,  I  guess." 

They  hesitated,  covering  their  hesitation  with  the 
earnest  working  of  their  toffee-filled  jaws. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        145 

Then  Anna-Felicitas,  her  cheek  distorted,  gave  him 
the  answer  she  had  given  the  captain  of  the  St,  Luke, 
and  said,  "Practically." 

"Ah,"  said  the  young  man,  turning  this  over  in  his 
mind,  the  r  in  "practically"  having  rolled  as  no  Eng- 
lish or  American  r  ever  did;  but  the  conductor  appear- 
ing in  the  doorway  he  continued  on  his  way. 

"It's  evident,"  said  Anna-Rose,  speaking  with  dif- 
ficulty, for  her  jaws  clave  together  because  of  the  toffee, 
"that  we're  going  to  be  asked  that  the  first  thing  every 
time  a  fresh  person  speaks  to  us.  We'd  better  decide 
what  we're  going  to  say,  and  practise  saying  it  without 
hesitation." 

Anna-Felicitas  made  a  sound  of  assent. 

"That  answer  of  yours  about  practically,"  continued 
Anna-Rose,  swallowing  her  bit  of  toffee  by  accident 
and  for  one  moment  afraid  it  would  stick  somewhere 
and  make  her  die,  "causes first  surprise,  then  reflection, 
and  then  suspicion." 

"But,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  'after  a  pause  during 
which  she  had  disentangled  her  jaws,  "it's  going  to  be 
difficult  to  say  one  is  German  when  America  seems  to 
be  so  very  neutral  and  doesn't  like  Germans.  Besides, 
it's  only  in  the  eye  of  the  law  that  we  are.  In  God's 
eye  we're  not,  and  that's  the  principal  eye  after  all." 

Her  own  eyes  grew  thoughtful.  "I  don't  believe," 
she  said,  "that  parents  when  they  marry  have  any 
idea  of  all  the  difficulties  they're  going  to  place  their 
children  in." 

"I  don't  believe  they  think  about  it  at  all,"  said 
Anna-Rose.  "I  mean,"  she  added  quickly,  lest  she 
should  be  supposed  to  be  questioning  the  perfect  love 
and  forethought  of  their  mother,  "fathers  don't." 

They  were  silent  a  little  after  this,  each  thinking 


146        ClffilSTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

tilings  tinged  to  sobriety  by  the  effect  of  the  inner 
conflict  going  on  between  the  clam  broth  and  the  toffee. 
Also  Boston  was  rushing  towards  them,  and  the  Clous- 
ton  Sacks.  Quite  soon  they  would  have  to  leave  the 
peaceful  security  of  the  train  and  begin  to  be  active 
again,  and  quick  and  clever.  Anna-Felicitas,  T>^ho  was 
slow,  found  it  difficult  ever  to  be  clever  till  about  the 
week  after,  and  Anna-Rose,  who  was  impetuous,  was  so 
impetuous  that  she  entirely  outstripped  her  scanty 
store  of  cleverness  and  landed  panting  and  surprised 
in  situations  she  hadn't  an  idea  what  to  do  with.  The 
Clouston  Sacks,  now — ^Aunt  Alice  had  said,  "You 
must  take  care  to  be  very  tactful  v/ith  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Clouston  Sack;"  and  when  Anna-Rose,  her  forehead  as 
much  puckered  as  Mr.  Twist's  in  her  desire  to  get 
exactly  at  what  tactful  was  in  order  to  be  able  diligently 
to  be  it,  asked  for  definitions.  Aunt  Alice  only  said  it 
was  what  gentlewomen  were  instinctively. 

"Then,"  observed  Anna-Felicitas,  when  on  nearing 
Boston  Anna-Rose  repeated  Aunt  Alice's  admonish- 
ment and  at  the  same  time  provided  Anna-Felicitas 
for  her  guidance  v/ith  the  definition,  "seeing  that 
we're  supposed  to  be  gentlewomen,  all  we've  got  to  do 
is  to  behave  according  to  our  instincts." 

But  Anna-Rose  wasn't  sure.  She  doubted  their 
instincts,  especially  Anna-Felicitas's.  She  thought  her 
own  were  better,  being  older,  but  even  hers  were  extraor- 
dinarily apt  to  develop  in  unexpected  directions 
according  to  the  other  person's  behaviour.  Her 
instinct,  for  instance,  when  engaged  by  Uncle  Arthur 
in  conversation  had  usually  been  to  hit  him.  Was  that 
tact.'^  Yet  she  knew  she  was  a  gentlewoman.  She  had 
heard  that,  since  first  she  had  heard  words  at  all,  from 
every  servant,  teacher,  visitor  and  relation — except  her 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        147 

mother — in  her  Prussian  home.  Indeed,  over  there 
she  had  been  told  she  was  more  than  a  gentlewoman, 
for  she  was  a  noblewoman  and  therefore  her  instincts 
ought  positively  to  drip  tact. 

"Mr.  Dodson,"  Aunt  Alice  had  said  one  afternoon 
towards  the  end,  when  the  twins  came  in  from  a  walk 
and  found  the  rector  having  tea,  "says  that  you  can't 
be  too  tactful  in  America.     He's  been  there." 

"Sensitive — sensitive,"  said  Mr.  Dodson,  shaking 
his  head  at  his  cup.  "Splendidly  sensitive,  just  as  they 
are  splendidly  whatever  else  they  are.  A  great  country. 
Everything  on  a  vast  scale,  including  sensitiveness.     It 

has  to  be  met  vastly.     But  quite  easy  really " 

He  raised  a  pedagogic  finger  at  the  twins.  "You 
merely  add  half  as  much  again  to  the  quantity  of  your 
tact  as  the  quantity  you  encounter  of  their  sensitive- 
ness, and  it's  all  right." 

"Be  sure  you  remember  that  now,"  said  Aunt  Alice, 
pleased. 

As  Boston  got  nearer,  Anna-Rose,  trying  to  learn  Mr. 
Dodson's  recij>e  for  social  success  by  heart,  became 
more  silent.  On  the  ship,  when  the  meeting  with  the 
Sacks  was  imminent,  she  had  fled  in  sudden  panic  to  her 
cabin  to  hide  from  them.  That  couldn't  have  been 
tact.  But  it  was  instinct.  And  she  was  a  gentle- 
woman. Now  once  again  dread  took  possession  of  her 
and  she  wanted  to  hide,  not  to  get  there,  to  stay  in  the 
train  and  go  on  and  on.  She  said  nothing,  of  course, 
of  her  dread  to  Anna-Felicitas  in  order  not  to  under- 
mine that  young  person's  morale,  but  she  did  very  much 
wish  that  principles  weren't  such  important  things  and 
one  needn't  have  cut  oneself  off  from  the  protecting 
figure  of  Mr.  Twist. 

"Now  remember  what  Aunt  Alice  said,"  she  whis- 


148        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

pered  severely  to  Anna-Felicitas,  gripping  her  arm  as 
they  stood  jammed  in  the  narrow  passage  to  the  door 
waiting  to  be  let  out  at  Boston. 

On  the  platform,  they  both  thought,  would  be  the 
Sacks, — certainly  one  Sack,  and  they  had  feverishly 
made  themselves  tidy  and  composed  their  faces  into 
pleasant  smiles  preparatory  to  the  meeting.  But 
once  again  no  Sacks  were  there.  The  platform  emptied 
itself  just  as  the  great  hall  of  the  landing-stage  had 
emptied  itself,  and  nobody  came  to  claim  the  Twinklers. 

"These  Sacks,"  remarked  Anna-Felicitas  patiently 
at  last,  when  it  was  finally  plain  that  there  weren't 
any,  "don't  seem  to  have  acquired  the  meeting  habit." 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose,  vexed  but  relieved. 
"  They're  like  what  Aunt  Alice  used  to  complain  about 
the  housemaids, — neither  punctual  nor  methodical." 

"But  it  doesn't  matter,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"They  shall  not  escape  us.  I'm  getting  quite  hungry 
for  the  Sacks  as  a  result  of  not  having  them.  We  will 
now  proceed  to  track  them  to  their  lair." 

For  one  instant  Anna-Rose  looked  longingly  at  the 
train.  It  was  still  there.  It  was  going  on  further  and 
further  away  from  the  Sacks.  Happy  train.  One 
little  jump,  and  they'd  be  in  it  again.  But  she  resisted, 
and  engaged  a  porter. 

Even  as  soon  as  this  the  twins  were  far  less  helpless 
than  they  had  been  the  day  before.  The  Sack  address 
was  in  Anna-Rose's  hand,  and  they  knew  what  an 
American  porter  looked  lil^e.  The  porter  and  a  taxi 
were  engaged  with  comparative  ease  and  assurance, 
and  on  giving  the  porter,  who  had  staggered  beneath 
the  number  of  their  grips,  a  dime,  and  seeing  a  cloud 
on  his  face,  they  doubled  it  instantly  sooner  than  have 
trouble,  and  trebled  it  equally  quickly  on  his  displaying 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        149 

yet  further  dissatisfaction,  and  they  departed  for  the 
Sacks,  their  grips  piled  up  round  them  in  the  taxi  as 
far  as  their  chins,  congratulating  themselves  on  how 
much  easier  it  was  to  get  away  from  a  train  than  to  get 
into  one. 

But  the  minute  their  activities  were  over  and  they 
had  time  to  think,  silence  fell  upon  them  again.  They 
were  both  nervous.  They  both  composed  their  faces 
to  indifference  to  hide  that  they  were  nervous,  examin- 
ing the  streets  they  passed  through  with  a  calm  and 
blase  stare  worthy  of  a  lorgnette.  It  was  the  tact  part 
of  the  coming  encounter  that  was  chiefly  unnerving 
Anna-Rose,  and  Anna-Felicitas  was  dejected  by  her 
conviction  that  nobody  who  was  a  friend  of  Uncle 
Arthur's  could  possibly  be  agreeable.  "By  their 
friends  ye  shall  know  them,"  thought  Anna-Felicitas, 
staring  out  of  the  window  at  the  Boston  buildings. 
Also  the  persistence  of  the  Sacks  in  not  being  on  piers 
and  railway  stations  was  discouraging.  There  was  no 
eagerness  about  this  persistence;  there  wasn't  even 
friendliness.  Perhaps  they  didn't  like  her  and  Anna- 
Rose  being  German. 

This  was  always  the  twins'  first  thought  when  any- 
body wasn't  particularly*  cordial.  Their  experiences 
in  England  had  made  them  a  little  jumpy.  They  were 
conscious  of  this  weak  spot,  and  like  a  hurt  finger  it 
Seemed  always  to  be  getting  in  the  way  and  being 
knocked.  Anna-Felicitas  once  more  pondered  on  the 
inscrutable  behaviour  of  Providence  which  had  led 
their  mother,  so  safely  and  admirably  English,  to  leave 
that  blessed  shelter  and  go  and  marry  somebody  who 
wasn't.  Of  course  there  was  this  to  be  said  for  it, 
that  she  wasn't  their  mother  then.  If  she  had  been, 
Anna-Felicitas   felt   sure   she   wouldn't   have.     Then, 


150        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

perceiving  that  her  thoughts  were  getting  difficult  to 
follow  she  gave  them  up,  and  slid  her  hand  through 
Anna-Rose's  arm  and  gave  it  a  squeeze. 

"Now  for  the  New  World,  Christopher,"  she  said, 
pretending  to  be  very  eager  and  brave  and  like  the  real 
Columbus,  as  the  taxi  stopped. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  taxi  had  stopped  in  front  of  a  handsome 
apartment  house,  and  almost  before  it  was 
quiet  a  boy  in  buttons  darted  out  across  the 
intervening  wide  pavement  and  thrust  his  face  through 
the  window. 

"Who  do  you  want?"  he  said,  or  rather  jerked  out. 

He  then  saw  the  contents  of  the  taxi,  and  his  mouth 
fell  open;  for  it  seemed  to  him  that  grips  and  pas- 
sengers were  piled  up  inside  it  in  a  seething  mass. 

"We  want  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Clouston  Sack,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  in  her  most  grown-up  voice.  "  They're  expecting 
us." 

"They  ain't,"  said  the  boy  promptly. 

"They  ain't.?"  repeated  Anna-Rose,  echoing  his  lan- 
guage in  her  surprise. 

"How  do  you  know?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas. 

"That  they  ain't?  Because  they  ain't,"  said  the 
boy.     "I  bet  you  my  Sunday  shirt  they  ain't." 

The  twins  stared  at  him.  They  were  not  accus- 
tomed in  their  conversations  with  the  lower  classes  to  be 
talked  to  about  shirts. 

r  The  boy  seemed  extraordinarily  vital.  His  speech 
was  so  quick  that  it  flew  out  with  the  urgency  and  haste 
of  squibs  going  off. 

"Please  open  the  door,"  said  Anna-Rose  recovering 
herself.     "We'll  go  up  and  see  for  ourselves." 

"You  won't  see,"  said  the  boy. 

"Kindly  open  the  door,"  repeated  Anna-Rose. 

151 


152        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"You  won't  see,"  he  said,  pulling  it  open,  "but 
you  can  look.  If  you  do  see  Sacks  up  there  I'm  a 
Hun." 

The  minute  the  door  opened,  grips  fell  out.  There 
were  two  umbrellas,  two  coats,  a  knapsack  of  a  dis- 
reputable bulged  appearance  repugnant  to  American 
ideas  of  baggage  which  run  on  big  simple  lines  of  huge 
trunks,  an  attache  case,  a  suit  case,  a  hold-all,  a  basket 
and  a  hat-box.  Outside  beside  the  driver  were  two 
such  small  and  modest  trunks  that  they  might  almost 
as  well  have  been  grips  themselves. 

"Do  you  mind  taking  those  in.f^"  asked  Anna-Rose, 
getting  out  with  difficulty  over  the  umbrella  that  had 
fallen  across  the  doorway,  and  pointing  to  the  gutter  in 
which  the  other  umbrella  and  the  knapsack  lay  and  into 
which  the  basket,  now  that  her  body  no  longer  kept  it 
in,  was  rolling. 

"In  where?"  crackled  the  boy. 

"In,"  said  Anna-Rose  severely.  "Into  wherever  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Clouston  Sack  are." 

"It's  no  good  your  saying  they  are  when  they  ain't," 
said  the  boy,  increasing  the  loudness  of  his  crackling. 

"Do  you  mean  they  don't  live  here.'^"  asked  Anna- 
Felicitas,  in  her  turn  disentangling  herself  from  that 
which  was  still  inside  the  taxi,  and  immediately  followed 
on  to  the  pavement  by  the  hold-all  and  the  attache  case, 

"They  did  live  here  till  yesterday,"  said  the  boy, 
"but  now  they  don't.  One  does.  But  that's  not  the 
same  as  two.  Which  is  what  I  meant  when  you  said 
they're  expecting  you  and  I  said  they  ain't." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say — ^"  Anna-Rose  stopped  with  a 
catch  of  her  breath.  "Do  you  mean,"  she  went  on 
in  an  awe-struck  voice,  "that  one  of  them — one  of 
them  is  dead?" 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        153 

"Dead?  Bless  you,  no.  Anything  but  dead.  The 
exact  opposite.     Gone.     Left.     Got,"  said  the  boy. 

"Oh,"  said  Anna-Rose  greatly  relieved,  passing  over 
his  last  word,  whose  meaning  escaped  her,  "oh — ^you 
mean  just  gone  to  meet  us.  And  missed  us.  You  see," 
she  said,  turning  to  Anna-Felicitas,  "they  did  try  to 
after  all." 

Anna-Felicitas  said  nothing,  but  reflected  that 
whichever  Sack  had  tried  to  must  have  a  quite  unusual 
gift  for  missing  people. 

"Gone  to  meet  you.^^"  repeated  the  boy,  as  one  sur- 
prised by  a  new  point  of  view.  "Well,  I  don't  know 
about  that " 

"We'll  go  up  and  explain,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "Is 
it  Mr.  or  Mrs.  Clouston  Sack  who  is  here.'^" 

"Mr.,"  said  the  boy. 

"Very    well    then.     Please    bring    in    our    things. 
And  Anna-Rose  proceeded,  followed  by  Anna-Felicitas, 
to  walk  into  the  house. 

The  boy,  instead  of  bringing  them  in,  picked  up  the 
articles  lying  on  the  pavement  and  put  them  back 
again  into  the  taxi.  "No  hurry  about  them,  I  guess," 
he  said  to  the  driver.     "Time  enough  to  take  them  up 

when  the  gurls  ask  again "  and  he  darted  after  the 

gurls  to  hand  them  over  to  his  colleague  who  worked 
what  he  called  the  elevator. 

"Why  do  you  call  it  the  elevator,"  inquired  Anna- 
Felicitas,  mildly  inquisitive,  of  this  boy,  who  on  hearing 
that  they  wished  to  see  Mr.  Sack  stared  at  them  with 
profound  and  unblinking  interest  all  the  way  up,  "when 
it  is  really  a  lift?" 

"Because  it  is  an  elevator,"  said  the  boy  briefly. 

"But  we,  you  see,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "are  equally 
convinced  that  it's  a  lift." 


j> 


154        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

The  boy  didn't  answer  this.  He  was  as  silent  as  the 
other  one  wasn't;  but  there  was  a  thrill  about  him  too, 
sometliing  electric  and  tense.  He  stared  at  Anna- 
Felicitas,  then  turned  quickly  and  stared  at  Anna-Rose, 
then  quickly  back  to  Anna-Felicitas,  and  so  on  all  the 
way  up.  He  was  obviously  extraordinarily  interested. 
He  seemed  to  have  got  hold  of  an  idea  that  had  not 
struck  the  squib-lilve  boy  downstairs,  who  was  enter- 
taining the  taxi-driver  with  descriptions  of  the  domestic 
life  of  the  Sacks. 

The  lift  stopped  at  what  the  twins  supposed  was 
going  to  be  the  door  of  a  landing  or  public  corridor,  but 
it  was,  they  discovered,  the  actual  door  of  the  Sack  flat. 
At  any  moment  the  Sacks,  if  they  wished  to  commit 
suicide,  could  do  so  simply  by  stepping  out  of  their 
own  front  door.  They  would  then  fall,  infinitely  far, 
on  to  the  roof  of  the  lift  lurking  at  the  bottom. 

The  lift-boy  pressed  a  bell,  the  door  opened,  and 
there,  at  once  exposed  to  the  twins,  was  the  square  hall 
of  the  Sack  flat  v/ith  a  manservant  standing  in  it 
staring  at  them. 

Obsessed  by  his  idea,  the  lift-boy  immediately  step- 
ped out  of  his  lift,  approached  the  servant,  introduced 
his  passengers  to  him  by  saying,  "Young  ladies  to  see 
Mr.  Sack,"  took  a  step  closer,  and  whispered  in  his  ear, 
but  perfectly  audibly  to  the  twins  who,  however, 
regarded  it  as  some  expression  peculiarly  American  and 
were  left  unmoved  by  it,  "The  co-respondents." 

The  servant  stared  uncertainly  at  them.  His 
mistress  had  only  been  gone  a  few  hours,  and  the  flat 
v/as  still  warm  with  her  presence  and  authority.  She 
wouldn't,  he  well  knew,  have  permitted  co-respondents 
to  be  about  the  place  if  she  had  been  there,  but  on  the 
other  hand  she  wasn't  there.     Mr.  Sack  was  in  sole 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        155 

possession  now.  Nobody  knew  where  Mrs.  Sack  was. 
Letters  and  telegrams  lay  on  the  table  for  her  unopened, 
among  them  Mr.  Twist's  announcing  the  arrival  of  the 
Twinklers.  In  his  heart  the  servant  sided  with  Mr. 
Sack,  but  only  in  his  heart,  for  the  servant's  wife  was 
the  cook,  and  she,  as  she  frequently  explained,  was  all 
for  strict  monogamy.  He  stared  therefore  uncertainly 
at  the  twins,  his  brain  revolving  round  their  colossal 
impudence  in  coming  there  before  Mrs.  Sack's  rooms 
had  so  much  as  had  time  to  get,  as  it  were,  cold. 

"We  want  to  see  Mr.  Clouston  Sack,"  began  Anna- 
Rose  in  her  clear  little  voice;  and  no  sooner  did  she 
begin  to  speak  than  a  door  was  pulled  open  and  the 
gentleman  himself  appeared. 

"I  heard  a  noise  of  arrival "  he  said,  stopping 

suddenly  when  he  saw  them.  "I  heard  a  noise  of 
arrival,  and  a  woman's  voice " 

"It's  us,"  said  Anna-Rose,  her  face  covering  itself 
with  the  bright  conciliatory  smiles  of  the  arriving  guest, 
"Are  you  Mr.  Clouston  Sack?" 

She  went  up  to  him  and  held  out  her  hand.  They 
both  went  up  to  him  and  held  out  their  hands. 

"We're  the  Twinklers,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"We've  come,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  in  case  he 
shouldn't  have  noticed  it. 

Mr,  Sack  let  his  hand  be  shaken,  and  it  was  a  moist 
hand.  He  looked  like  a  Gibson  young  man  who  has 
grown  elderly.  He  had  the  manly  profile  and  shoul- 
ders, but  they  sagged  and  stooped.  There  was  a  dilapi- 
dation about  him,  a  look  of  blurred  edges.  His  hair  lay 
on  his  forehead  in  disorder,  and  his  tie  had  been  put  on 
carelessly  and  had  wriggled  up  to  the  rim  of  his  collar. 

"The  Twinklers,"  he  repeated.  "The  Twinklers, 
Do  I  remember,  I  wonder  .f^" 


156        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"There  hasn't  been  much  time  to  forget,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas.  "It's  less  than  two  months  since  there  were 
all  those  letters." 

"Letters?"  echoed  Mr.  Sack.     "Letters.?" 

"So  now  we've  got  here,"  said  Anna-Rose,  the  more 
brightly  that  she  was  unnerved. 

"Yes.  We've  come,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  also  with 
feverish  brightness. 

Bewildered,  Mr.  Sack,  who  felt  that  he  had  had 
enough  to  bear  the  last  few  hours,  stood  staring  at 
them.  Then  he  caught  sight  of  the  lift-boy,  lingering, 
and  he  further  saw  the  expression  on  his  servant's  face. 
Even  to  his  bewilderment  it  was  clear  what  he  was 
thinking. 

Mr.  Sack  turned  round  quickly  and  led  the  way  into 
the  dining-room.  "Come  in,  come  in,"  he  said  dis- 
tractedly. 

They  went  in.  He  shut  the  door.  The  lift-boy  and 
the  servant  lingered  a  moment  making  faces  at  each 
other;  then  the  lift-boy  dropped  away  in  his  lift,  and 
the  servant  retired  to  the  kitchen.  "I'm  darned," 
was  all  he  could  articulate.     "I'm  darned." 

"There's  our  luggage,"  said  Anna-Rose,  turning  to 
Mr.  Sack  on  getting  inside  the  room,  her  voice  gone  a 
little  shrill  in  her  determined  cheerfulness.  "Can  it 
be  brought  up.?" 

"Luggage.?"  repeated  Mr.  Sack,  putting  his  hand  to 
his  forehead.  "Excuse  me,  but  I've  got  such  a  racking 
headache  to-day — it  makes  me  stupid " 

"Oh,  I'm  very  sorry,"  said  Anna-Rose  solicitously. 

"And  so  am  I — very^^  said  Anna-Felicitas,  equally 
solicitous.  "Have  you  tried  aspirin.?  Sometimes  some 
simple  remedy  like  that " 

^  Oh  thank  you—  it's  good  of  you,  it's  good  of  you. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        157 

The  effect,  you  see,  is  that  I  can't  think  very  clearly. 
But  do  tell  me — why  luggage?  Luggage — ^luggage. 
You  mean,  I  suppose,  baggage." 

"  Why  luggage?  "  asked  Anna-Rose  nervously.  "Isn't 
there — isn't  there  always  luggage  in  America  too  when 
people  come  to  stay  with  one?" 

"You've  come  to  stay  with  me,"  said  Mr.  Sack, 
putting  his  hand  to  his  forehead  again. 

"You  see,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "we're  the 
Twinklers." 

"Yes,  yes — I  know.     You've  told  me  that." 

"So  naturally  we've  come." 

"But  is  it  natural?"  asked  Mr.  Sack,  looking  at  them 
distractedly. 

"We  sent  you  a  telegram,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "of 
rather  one  to  Mrs.  Sack,  which  is  the  same  thing " 

"It  isn't,  it  isn't,"  said  the  distressed  Mr.  Sack. 
"I  wish  it  were.  It  ought  to  be.  Mrs.  Sack  isn't 
here " 

"Yes — we're  very  sorry  to  have  missed  her.  Did 
she  go  to  meet  us  in  New  York,  or  where?" 

"Mrs.  Sack  didn't  go  to  meet  you.     She's — ^gone." 

"Gone  where?" 

"Oh,"  cried  Mr.  Sack,  "somewhere  else,  but  not  to 
meet  you.  Oh,"  he  went  on  after  a  moment  in  which, 
while  the  twins  gazed  at  him,  he  fought  with  and  over- 
came emotion,  "when  I  heard  you  speaking  in  the  hall 
I  thought — ^I  had  a  moment's  hope — for  a  minute  I 
believed — she  had  come  back.  So  I  went  out.  Else 
I  couldn't  have  seen  you.  I'm  not  fit  to  see  stran- 
gers  " 

The  things  Mr.  Sack  said,  and  his  fluttering,  un- 
happy voice,  were  so  much  at  variance  with  the  stern 
lines  of  his  Gibson  profile  that  the  twins  viewed  him 


158        CHKISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

with  tlie  utmost  surprise.  They  came  to  no  conclusion 
and  passed  no  judgment  because  they  didn't  know  but 
what  if  one  v/as  an  American  one  naturally  behaved 
like  that. 

"I  don't  think,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  gently,  "that 
you  can  call  us  strangers.     We're  the  Twinklers." 

"Yes,  yes — I  know — you  keep  on  telling  me  that," 
said  Mr.  Sack.     "But  I  can't  call  to  mind " 

"Don't  you  remember  all  Uncle  Arthur's  letters 
about  us.^  We're  the  nieces  he  asked  you  to  be  kind  to 
for  a  bit — as  I'm  sure,"  Anna-Felicitas  added  politely, 
"you're  admirably  adapted  for  being." 

Mr.  Sack  turned  his  bewildered  eyes  on  to  her. 
"Oh,  aren't  you  a  pretty  girl,"  he  said,  in  the  same 
distressed  voice. 

"You  mustn't  make  her  vain,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
trying  not  to  smile  all  over  her  face,  while  Anna- 
Felicitas  remained  as  manifestly  unvain  as  a  person 
intent  on  something  else  would  be. 

"We  know  you  got  Uncle  Arthur's  letters  about  us," 
she  continued,  "because  he  showed  us  your  answers 
back.  You  invited  us  to  come  and  stay  with  you. 
And,  as  you  perceive,  we've  done  it." 

"Then  it  must  have  been  months  ago — months  ago," 
said  Mr.  Sack,  "before  all  this — do  I  remember  some- 
thing about  it.^  I've  had  such  trouble  since — I've 
been  so  distracted  one  way  and  another — it  may  have 
slipped  away  out  of  my  memory    under  the  stress — 

Mrs.   Sack "     He  paused  and  looked  round  the 

room  helplessly.  "Mrs.  Sack — well,  Mrs.  Sack  isn't 
here  now." 

"We're  very  sorry  you've  had  trouble,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  sympathetically.  "It's  what  everybody  has, 
though.     Man  that  is  born  of  woman  is  full  of  misery. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        159 

That's  what  the  Burial  Service  says,  and  it  ought  to 
know." 

]VIr.  Sack  again  turned  bewildered  eyes  on  to  her. 
"Oh,  aren't  you  a  pretty "  he  again  began. 

"When  do  you  think  Mrs.  Sack  will  be  back.^" 
interrupted  Anna-Rose. 

"I  wish  I  knew — I  wish  I  could  hope — but  she's 
gone  for  a  long  while,  I'm  afraid " 

"Gone  not  to  come  back  at  all,  do  you  mean.^^"  asked 
Anna-Felicitas. 

Mr.  Sack  gulped.  "  I'm  afraid  that  is  her  intention,"^ 
he  said  miserably. 

There  was  a  silence,  in  which  they  all  stood  looking 
at  each  other. 

"Didn't  she  like  you?"  then  inquired  Anna-Felicitas, 

Anna-Rose,  sure  that  this  wasn't  tactful,  gave  her 
sleeve  a  little  pull. 

"Were  you  unkind  to  her?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas, 
disregarding  the  warning. 

Mr.  Sack,  his  fingers  clasping  and  unclasping  them- 
selves behind  his  back,  started  walking  up  and  down 
the  room.  Anna-Felicitas,  forgetful  of  what  Aunt 
Alice  would  have  said,  sat  down  on  the  edge  of  the 
table  and  began  to  be  interested  in  Mrs.  Sack. 

"The  wives  I've  seen,"  she  remarked,  watching  Mr. 
Sack  with  friendly  and  interested  eyes,  "who  were 
chiefly  Aunt  Alice — ^that's  Uncle  Arthur's  wife,  the  one 
we're  the  nieces  of — seemed  to  put  up  with  the  utmost 
contumely  from  their  husbands  and  yet  didn't  budge. 
You  must  have  been  something  awful  to  yours." 

"I  worshipped  Mrs.  Sack,"  burst  out  Mr.  Sack. 
"I  worshipped  her.  I  do  worship  her.  She  was  the 
handsomest,  brightest  woman  in  Boston.  I  was  as 
proud  of  her  as  any  man  has  ever  been  of  his  wife." 


160        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Then  why  did  she  go?"  asked  Aima-Felicitas. 

"I  don't  think  that's  the  sort  of  thing  you  should 
ask,"  rebuked  Anna-Rose. 

"But  if  I  don't  ask  I  won't  be  told,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  "and  I'm  interested." 

"Mrs.  Sack  went  because  I  was  able — ^I  was  so  con- 
structed— that  I  could  be  fond  of  other  people  as  well 
as  of  her,"  said  Mr.  Sack. 

"Well,  ihafs  nothing  unusual,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "I  don't  see  anything  in 
that." 

"I  think  it  shows  a  humane  and  friendly  spirit,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"Besides,  it's  enjoined  in  the  Bible,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"I'm  sure  when  we  meet  Mrs.  Sack,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  very  politely  indeed,  "much  as  we  expect 
to  like  her  we  shall  nevertheless  continue  to  like  other 
people  as  well.  You,  for  instance.  Will  she  mind 
that?" 

"It  wasn't  so  much  that  I  liked  other  people,"  said 
Mr.  Sack,  walking  about  and  thinking  tumultuously 
aloud  rather  than  addressing  anybody,  "but  that  I 
liked  other  people  so  much:'* 

"I  see,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  nodding.  "You  over- 
did it.  Like  over-eating  whipped  cream.  Only  it 
wasn't  you  but  Mrs.  Sack  who  got  the  resulting  ache." 

"And  aren't  I  aching?     Aren't  I  suffering?" 

"Yes,  but  you  did  the  over-eating,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

"The  world,"  said  the  unhappy  Mr.  Sack,  quicken- 
ing his  pace,  "is  so  full  of  charming  and  delightful 
people.     Is  one  to  shut  one's  eyes  to  them?" 

"Of  course  not,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "One  must 
love  them." 


^CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        161 

''Yes,  yes,"  said  Mr.  Sack.  "Exactly.  That's 
what  I  did." 

*'And  though  I  wouldn't  wish,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
"to  say  anything  against  somebody  who  so  very  nearly 
was  my  hostess,  yet  really,  you  know,  wasn't  Mrs. 
Sack's  attitude  rather  churlish.'^" 

Mr.  Sack  gazed  at  her.  "Oh,  aren't  you  a  pretty 
"  he  began  again,  with  a  kind  of  agonized  en- 
thusiasm; but  he  was  again  cut  short  by  Anna-Rose, 
on  whom  facts  of  a  disturbing  nature  were  beginning  to 
press. 

"Aunt  Alice,"  she  said,  looking  and  feeling  extremely 
perturbed  as  the  situation  slowly  grew  clear  to  her, 
"told  us  we  were  never  to  stay  with  people  whose  wives 
are  somewhere  else.  Unless  they  have  a  mother  or 
other  female  relative  living  with  them.  She  was  most 
particular  about  it,  and  said  whatever  else  we  did  we 
weren't  ever  to  do  this.  So  I'm  afraid,"  she  con- 
tinued in  her  politest  voice,  determined  to  behave 
beautifully  under  circumstances  that  were  trying, 
"much  as  we  should  have  enjoyed  staying  with  you 
and  Mrs.  Sack  if  she  had  been  here  to  stay  with,  seeing 
that  she  isn't  we  manifestly  can't." 

"You  can't  stay  with  me,"  murmured  Mr.  Sack, 
turning  his  bewildered  eyes  to  her.  "Were  you  going 
to?" 

"Of  course  we  were  going  to.  It's  what  we've  come 
for,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"And  I'm  afraid,"  said-Anna-Rose,  "disappointed 
as  we  are,  unless  you  can  produce  a  mother " 

"But  where  on  earth  are  we  to  go  to,  Anna-R..^^" 
inquired  Anna-Felicitas,  who,  being  lazy,  having  got 
to  a  place  preferred  if  possible  to  stay  in  it,  and  who 
besides  was  sure  that  in  their  forlorn  situation  a  Sack 


162        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

in  the  hand  was  worth  two  Sacks  not  in  it,  any  day. 
Also  she  liked  the  look  of  Mr.  Sack,  in  spite  of  his  being 
so  obviously  out  of  repair.  He  badly  wanted  doing  up, 
she  said  to  herself,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  seemed 
to  her  lovable  in  his  distress,  with  much  of  the  pathetic 
helplessness  her  own  dear  Irish  terrier,  left  behind  in 
Germany,  had  had  the  day  he  caught  his  foot  in  a  rabbit 
trap.  He  had  looked  at  Anna-Felicitas,  while  she  was 
trying  to  get  him  out  of  it,  with  just  the  same  expres- 
sion on  liis  face  that  Mr.  Sack  had  on  his  as  he  walked 
about  the  room  twisting  and  untwisting  his  fingers 
behind  his  back.  Only,  her  Irish  terrier  hadn't  had  a 
Gibson  profile.  Also,  he  had  looked  much  more 
eflScient. 

"Can't  you  by  any  chance  produce  a  mother .f^"  she 
asked. 

Mr.  Sack  stared  at  her. 

*'0f  course  we're  very  sorry,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

Mr.  Sack  stared  at  her. 

*'But  you  understand,  I'm  sure,  that  under  the 
circumstances " 

"Do  you  say,"  said  Mr.  Sack,  stopping  still  after 
a  few  more  turns  in  front  of  Anna-Rose,  and  making  a 
great  effort  to  collect  his  thoughts,  "that  I — that  we — 
had  arranged  to  look  after  you.^^" 

"Arranged  with  Uncle  Arthur,"  said  Anna-Rose. 
"Uncle  Arthur  Abinger.  Of  course  you  had.  That's 
why  we're  here.  Why,  you  wrote  bidding  us  welcome. 
He  showed  us  the  letter." 

"Abinger.  Abinger.  Oh — ^/m^  man,"  said  Mr.  Sack, 
his  mind  clearing. 

"We  thought  you'd  probably  feel  like  that  about 
him,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  sympathetically. 

"Why,  then,"  said  Mr.  Sack,  his  mind  getting  sud- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        163 

denly  quite  clear,  "you  must  be — why,  you  are  the 
Twinklers." 

"We've  been  drawing  your  attention  to  that  at 
frequent  intervals  since  we  got  here,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

But  whether  you  now  remember  or  still  don't  realize," 
said  Anna-Rose  with  great  firmness,  "  I'm  afraid  we've 
got  to  say  good-bye." 

"That's  all  very  well,  Anna-R.,"  again  protested 
Anna-Felicitas,  "but  where  are  we  to  go  to?" 

"Go?"  said  Anna-Rose  with  a  dignity  very  creditable 
in  one  of  her  size,  "Ultimately  to  California,  of  course, 
to  Uncle  Arthur's  other  friends.  But  now,  this  after- 
noon, we  get  back  into  a  train  and  go  to  Clark,  to  Mr. 
Twist.     He  at  least  has  a  mother." 


CHAPTER  XV 

i4ND  so  it  came  about  that  just  as  the  reunited 
Zjk  Twists,  mother,  son  and  daughter,  were  sitting 
X  Jl  in  the  drawing-room,  a  little  tired  after  a  long 
afternoon  of  affection,  waiting  for  seven  o'clock  to 
strike  and,  with  the  striking,  Amanda  the  head  maid 
to  appear  and  announce  supper,  but  waiting  with  lass- 
itude, for  they  had  not  yet  recovered  from  an  elaborate 
welcoming  dinner,  the  Twinklers,  in  the  lovely  twilight 
of  a  golden  day,  were  hastening  up  the  winding  road  from 
the  station  towards  them.  Silent,  and  a  little  exhausted, 
the  unconscious  Twists  sat  in  their  drawing-room,  a 
place  of  marble  and  antimacassars,  while  these  light  fig- 
ures, their  shoes  white  with  the  dust  of  a  country-side 
that  had  had  no  rain  for  weeks,  sped  every  moment  nearer. 
The  road  wound  gently  upwards  through  fields  and 
woods,  through  quiet,  delicious  evening  country,  and 
there  was  one  little  star  twinkling  encouragingly  at 
the  twins  from  over  where  they  supposed  Clark  would 
be.  At  the  station  there  had  been  neither  porter  nor 
conveyance,  nor  indeed  anybody  or  anything  at  all 
except  themselves,  their  luggage,  and  a  thin,  kind 
man  who  represented  authority.  Clark  is  two  miles 
away  from  its  station,  and  all  the  way  to  it  is  unin- 
habited. Just  at  the  station  are  a  cluster  of  those 
hasty  buildings  America  flings  down  in  out-of-the-way 
places  till  she  shall  have  leisure  to  make  a  splendid 
city;  but  the  road  immediately  curved  away  from 
these  up  into  solitude  and  the  evening  sky. 

164 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       165 

"You  can't  miss  it,"  encouraged  the  station-master. 
"Keep  right  along  after  your  noses  till  they  knock  up 
against  Mrs.  Twist's  front  gate.  I'll  look  after  the 
menagerie — "  thus  did  he  describe  the  Twinkler  lug- 
gage. "Guess  Mrs.  Twist'll  be  sending  for  it  as  soon 
as  you  get  there.  Guess  she  forgot  you.  Guess  she's 
shaken  up  by  young  Mr.  Twist's  arriving  this  very  day. 
/  wouldn't  have  forgotten  you.  No,  not  for  a  dozen 
young  Mr.  Twists,"  he  added  gallantly. 

"Why  do  you  call  him  young  Mr.  Twist,"  inquired 
Anna-Fehcitas,  "when  he  isn't .f^  He  must  be  at  least 
thirty  or  forty  or  fifty." 

"You  see,  we  know  him  quite  well,"  said  Anna-Rose 
proudly,  as  they  walked  off.  "He's  a  great  friend  of 
ours." 

"You  don't  say,"  said  the  station-master,  who  was 
chewing  gum;  and  as  the  twins  had  not  yet  seen  this 
being  done  they  concluded  he  had  been  interrupted  in 
the  middle  of  a  meal  by  the  arrival  of  the  train. 

"Now  mind,"  he  called  after  them,  "you  do  what- 
ever the  road  does.  Give  yourselves  up  to  it,  and  how- 
ever much  it  winds  about  stick  to  it.  You'll  meet 
other  roads,  but  don't  you  take  any  notice  of  them." 

Freed  from  their  luggage,  and  for  a  moment  from  all 
care,  the  twins  went  up  the  hill.  It  was  the  nicest 
thing  in  the  world  to  be  going  to  see  their  friend  again 
in  quite  a  few  minutes.  They  had,  ever  since  the  col- 
lapse of  the  Sack  arrangements,  been  missing  him  very 
much.  As  they  hurried  on  through  the  scented  woods, 
past  quiet  fields,  between  yellow-leaved  hedges,  the 
evening  sky  growing  duskier  and  the  beckoning  star 
brighter,  they  remembered  Mr.  Twist's  extraordinary 
kindness,  his  devoted  and  unfailing  care,  with  the 
warmest   feelings   of   gratitude   and   affection.     Even 


166        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIVIBUS 

Anna-Felicitas  felt  warm.  How  often  had  he  re- 
arranged her  head  when  it  was  hopelessly  rolling  about; 
how  often  had  he  fed  her  when  she  felt  better  enough 
to  be  hungry.  Anna-Felicitas  was  very  hungry.  She 
still  thought  highly  of  pride  and  independence,  but  now 
considered  their  proper  place  was  after  a  good  meal. 
And  Anna-Rose,  with  all  the  shameless  cheerfulness 
of  one  who  for  a  little  has  got  rid  of  her  pride  and  is 
feeling  very  much  more  comfortable  in  consequence, 
remarked  that  one  mustn't  overdo  independence. 

" Let's  hurry,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "I'm  so  dread- 
fully hungry.  I  do  so  terribly  want  supper.  And  I'm 
sure  it's  supper- time,  and  the  Twists  will  have  finished 
and  we  mightn't  get  any." 

"As  though  Mr.  Twist  wouldn't  see  to  that!"  ex- 
claimed Anna-Rose,  proud  and  confident. 

But  she  did  begin  to  run,  for  she  too  was  very  hungry, 
and  they  raced  the  rest  of  the  way;  which  is  why  they 
arrived  on  the  Twist  doorstep  panting,  and  couldn't 
at  first  answer  Amanda  the  head  maid's  surprised  and 
ungarnished  inquiry  as  to  what  they  wanted,  when  she 
opened  the  door  and  found  them  there. 

"We  want  Mr.  Twist,"  said  Anna-Rose,  as  soon  as 
she  could  speak. 

Amanda  eyed  them.  "You  from  the  village.^"  she 
asked,  thinking  perhaps  they  might  be  a  deputation  of 
elder  school  children  sent  to  recite  welcoming  poems 
to  Mr.  Twist  on  his  safe  return  from  the  seat  of  war. 
Yet  she  knew  all  the  school  children  and  everybody 
else  in  Clark,  and  none  of  them  were  these. 

"No — from  the  station,"  panted  Anna-Rose. 

"We  didn't  see  any  village,"  panted  Anna-Felicitas. 

"We  want  Mr.  Twist  please,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
struggling  with  her  breath. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       167 

Amanda  eyed  them.  "Having  supper,"  she  said 
curtly. 

"Fortunate  creature,"  gasped  Anna-Felicitas,  "I 
do  hope  he  isn't  eating  it  all." 

"Will  you  announce  us  please?"  said  Anna-Rose 
putting  on  her  dignity.     "The  Miss  Twinklers." 

"The  who.f^"  said  Amanda. 

"The  Miss  Twinklers,"  said  Anna-Rose,  putting  on 
still  more  dignity,  for  there  was  that  in  Amanda's 
manner  which  roused  the  Junker  in  her. 

"Can't  disturb  him  at  supper,"  said  Amanda  briefly. 

"I  assure  you,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  with  the  earnest- 
ness of  conviction,  "that  he'll  like  it.  I  think  I  can 
undertake  to  promise  he'll  show  no  resentment  what- 
ever." 

Amanda  half  shut  the  door. 

"We'll  come  in  please,"  said  Anna-Rose,  inserting 
herself  into  what  was  left  of  the  opening.  "Will 
you  kindly  bear  in  mind  that  we're  totally .  unaccus- 
tomed to  the  doorstep  .f^" 

Amanda,  doubtful,  but  unpractised  in  such  a  situa- 
tion, permitted  herself,  in  spite  of  having  as  she  well 
knew  the  whole  of  free  and  equal  America  behind  her, 
to  be  cowed.  Well,  perhaps  not  cowed,  but  taken 
aback.  It  was  the  long  words  and  the  awful  politeness 
that  did  it.  She  wasn't  used  to  beautiful  long  words 
like  that,  except  on  Sundays  when  the  clergyman  read 
the  prayers  in  church,  and  she  wasn't  used  to  politeness. 
That  so  much  of  it  should  come  out  of  objects  so  young 
rendered  Amanda  temporarily  dumb. 

She  wavered  with  the  door.  Instantly  Anna-Rose 
slipped  through  it;  instantly  Anna-Felicitas  followed 
her. 

"Kindly  tell  your  master  the  Miss  Twinklers  have 


168        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

arrived,"  said  Anna-Rose,  looking  every  inch  a  Junker. 
There  weren't  many  inches  of  Anna-Rose,  but  every 
one  of  them  at  that  moment,  faced  by  Amanda's 
want  of  discipHne,  was  sheer  Junker. 

Amanda,  who  had  never  met  a  Junker  in  her  happy 
democratic  life,  was  stirred  into  bristling  emotion  by 
the  word  master.  She  was  about  to  fling  the  insult  of 
it  from  her  by  an  impetuous  and  ill-considered  assertion 
that  if  he  was  her  master  she  was  his  mistress  and  so 
there  now,  when  the  bell  which  had  rung  once  already 
since  they  had  been  standing  parleying  rang  again  and 
more  impatiently,  and  the  dining-room  door  opened 
and  a  head  appeared.  The  twins  didn't  know  that  it 
was  Edith's  head,  but  it  was. 

"Amanda "  began  Edith,  in  the  appealing  voice 

that  was  the  nearest  she  ever  dared  get  to  rebuke 
without  Amanda  giving  notice;  but  she  stopped  on 
seeing  what,  in  the  dusk  of  the  hall,  looked  like  a  crowd. 
"Oh—"  said  Edith,  taken  aback.  "Oh—"  And 
was  for  withdrawing  her  head  and  shutting  the  door. 

But  the  twins  advanced  towards  her  and  the  stream 
of  light  shining  behind  her  and  the  agreeable  smell 
streaming  past  her,  with  outstretched  hands. 

"How  do  you  do,"  they  both  said  cordially.  *' Don't 
go  away  again." 

Edith,  feeling  that  here  was  something  to  protect  her 
quietly  feeding  mother  from,  came  rather  hastily 
through  the  door  and  held  it  to  behind  her,  while  her 
unresponsive  and  surprised  hand  was  taken  and  shaken 
even  as  Mr.  Sack's  had  been. 

"We've  come  to  see  Mr.  Twist,"  said  Anna-Rose... 

"He's  our  friend,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"He's  our  best  friend,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Is  he  in  there?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  apprecia- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       169 

lively  moving  her  nose,  a  particularly  delicate  instru- 
ment, round  among  the  various  really  heavenly 
smells  that  were  issuing  from  the  dining-room  and 
sorting  them  out  and  guessing  what  they  probably 
represented,  the  while  water  rushed  into  her  mouth. 

The  sound  of  a  chair  being  hastily  pushed  back  was 
heard,  and  Mr.  Twist  suddenly  appeared  in  the  door- 
way. 

"What  is  it,  Edward?"  a  voice  inside  said. 

Mr.  Twist  was  a  pale  man,  whose  skin  under  no  cir- 
cumstances changed  colour  except  in  his  ears.  These 
turned  red  when  he  was  stirred,  and  they  were  red 
now,  and  seemed  translucent  with  the  bright  light 
behind  him  shining  through  them. 

The  twins  flew  to  him.  It  was  wonderful  how  much 
pleased  they  were  to  see  him  again.  It  was  as  if  for 
years  they  had  been  separated  from  their  dearest 
friend.  The  few  hours  since  the  night  before  had  been 
enough  to  turn  their  friendship  and  esteem  for  him  into 
a  warm  proprietary  affection.  They  felt  that  Mr. 
Twist  belonged  to  them.  Even  Anna-Felicitas  felt 
it,  and  her  eyes  as  she  beheld  him  were  bright  with 
pleasure. 

"Oh  there  you  are,"  cried  Anna-Rose  darting  for- 
ward, gladness  in  her  voice,  and  catching  hold  of  his 
arm. 

"We've  come,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  beaming  and 
catching  hold  of  his  other  arm. 

"We  got  into  difficulties,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"We  got  into  them  at  once,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"They  weren't  our  difficulties " 

"They  were  the  Sacks' " 

"But  they  reacted  on  us " 

"And  so  here  we  are." 


170        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Who  is  it,  Edward?"  asked  the  voice  inside. 

"]\Irs.  Sack  ran  away  yesterday  from  Mr.  Sack," 
went  on  Anna-Rose  eagerly. 

"Mr.  Sack  was  still  quite  warm  and  moist  from  it 
when  we  got  there,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Aunt  Alice  said  we  weren't  ever  to  stay  in  a  house 
where  they  did  that,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Where  there  wasn't  a  lady,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"So  when  we  saw  that  she  wasn't  there  because  she'd 
gone,  we  turned  straight  round  to  you,"  said  Anna- 
Rose. 

"LUie  flowers  turning  to  the  sun,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  even  in  that  moment  of  excitement  not  with- 
out complacency  at  her  own  aptness. 

"And  left  our  things  at  the  station,"  Anna-Rose 
rushed  on. 

"And  ran  practically  the  whole  way,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  "because  of  perhaps  being  late  for  supper 
and  you're  having  eaten  it  all,  and  we  so  dreadfully 
hungry " 

"Who  is  it,  Edward?"  again  called  the  voice  inside, 
louder  and  more  insistently. 

^Ir.  Twist  didn't  answer.  He  was  quickly  turning 
over  the  situation  in  his  mind. 

He  had  not  mentioned  the  twins  to  his  mother,  which 
v/ould  have  been  natural,  seeing  how  very  few  hours  he 
had  of  reunion  with  her,  if  she  hadn't  happened  to 
have  questioned  him  particularly  as  to  his  fellow- 
passengers  on  the  boat.  Her  questions  had  been  con- 
fined to  the  first-class  passengers,  and  he  had  said, 
truthfully,  that  he  had  hardly  spoken  to  one  of  them, 
and  not  at  all  to  any  of  the  women. 

Mrs.  Twist  had  been  relieved,  for  she  lived  in  dread 
of  Edward's  becoming,  as  she  put  it  to  herself,  entangled 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       171 

with  ladies.  Sin  would  be  bad  enough — for  Mrs. 
Twist  was  obliged  reluctantly  to  know  that  even  with 
ladies  it  is  possible  to  sin — but  marriage  for  Edward 
would  be  even  worse,  because  it  lasted  longer.  Sin, 
terrible  though  it  was,  had  at  least  this  to  be  said  for  it, 
that  it  could  be  repented  of  and  done  with,  and  repent- 
ance after  all  was  a  creditable  activity;  but  there  was 
no  repenting  of  marriage  with  any  credit.  It  was  a 
holy  thing,  and  you  don't  repent  of  holy  things, — at 
least,  you  oughtn't  to.  If,  as  ill-advised  young  men  so 
often  would,  Edward  wanted  as  years  went  on  to  marry 
in  spite  of  his  already  having  an  affectionate  and  sym- 
pathetic home  with  feminine  society  in  it,  then  it 
seemed  to  Mrs.  Twist  most  important,  most  vital  to 
the  future  comfort  of  the  family,  that  it  should  be  some- 
one she  had  chosen  herself.  She  had  observed  him 
from  infancy,  and  knew  much  better  than  he  what  was 
needed  for  his  happiness;  and  she  also  knew,  if  there 
must  be  a  wife,  what  was  needed  for  the  happiness  of 
his  mother  and  sister.  She  had  not  thought  to  inquire 
about  the  second-class  passengers,  for  it  never  occurred 
to  her  that  a  son  of  hers  could  drift  out  of  his  natural 
first-class  sphere  into  the  slums  of  a  ship,  and  Mr. 
Twist  had  seen  no  reason  for  hurrying  the  Twinklers 
into  her  mental  range.  Not  during  those  first  hours, 
anyhow.  There  would  be  plenty  of  hours,  and  he  felt 
that  suflScient  unto  the  day  would  be  the  Twinklers 
thereof. 

But  the  part  that  was  really  making  his  ears  red  was 
that  he  had  said  nothing  about  the  evening  with  the 
twins  in  New  York.  When  his  mother  asked  with  the 
fondness  of  the  occasion  what  had  detained  him,  he 
had  said  as  many  another  honest  man,  pressed  by  the 
searching  affection  of  relations,  has  said  before  him. 


172        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

that  it  was  business.  Now  it  appeared  that  he  would 
have  to  go  into  the  dining-room  and  say,  "No.  It 
wasn't  business.     It  was  these." 

His  ears  glowed  just  to  think  of  it.  He  hated  to  lie. 
Specially  he  hated  to  have  lied, — at  the  moment,  one 
plunged  in  spurred  by  sudden  necessity,  and  then  was 
left  sorrowfully  contemplating  one's  degradation.  His 
own  desire  was  always  to  be  candid;  but  his  mother,  he 
well  knew,  could  not  bear  the  pains  candour  gave  her. 
She  had  been  so  terribly  hurt,  so  grievously  wounded, 
when,  fresh  from  praying, — for  before  he  went  to 
Harvard  he  used  to  pray — ^he  had  on  one  or  two  occas- 
ions for  a  few  minutes  endeavoured  not  to  lie  to  her, 
that  sheer  fright  at  the  effect  of  his  unfiliality  made  him 
apologize  and  beg  her  to  forget  it  and  forgive  him. 
Now  she  was  going  to  be  still  more  wounded  by  his 
having  lied. 

The  meticulous  tortuousness  of  family  life  struck 
Mr.  Twist  with  a  sudden  great  impatience.  After 
that  large  life  over  there  in  France,  to  come  back  to 
this  dreary  petticoat  lying,  this  feeling  one's  way  about 
among  tender  places.     .     .     . 

"Who  is  it,  Edward?"  called  the  voice  inside  for 
the  third  time. 

"There's  someone  in  there  seems  quite  particularly 
to  want  to  knov/  who  we  are,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"Why  not  tell  her?" 

"I  expect  it's  your  mother,"  said  Anna-Rose,  feeling 
the  full  satisfaction  of  having  got  to  a  house  from  which 
the  lady  hadn't  run  anywhere. 

"It  is,"  said  Mr.  Twist  briefly. 

"Edith!"  called  the  voice,  much  more  peremptorily. 

Edith  started  and  half  went  in,  but  hesitated  and 
quite  stayed  out.     She  was  gazing  at  the  Twinklers 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        173 

with  the  same  kind  eyes  her  brother  had,  but  without 
the  disfiguring  spectacles.  Astonishment  and  per- 
plexity and  anxiety  were  mixed  with  the  kindness. 
Amanda  also  gazed;  and  if  the  twins  hadn't  been  so 
sure  of  their  welcome,  even  they  might  gradually  have 
begun  to  perceive  that  it  wasn't  exactly  open-armed. 

"Edith — Edward — ^Amanda,"  called  the  voice,  this 
time  with  unmistakable  anger. 

For  one  more  moment  Mr.  Twist  stood  uncertain, 
looking  down  at  the  happy  confident  faces  turned  up 
to  him  exactly,  as  Anna-Felicitas  had  just  said,  like 
flowers  turning  to  the  sun.  Visions  of  France  flashed 
before  him,  visions  of  what  he  had  known,  what  he  had 
just  come  back  from.  His  friends  over  there,  the  gay 
courage,  the  helpfulness,  the  ready,  uninquiring  affection, 
the  breadth  of  outlook,  the  quick  friendliness,  the  care- 
less assumption  that  one  was  decent,  that  one's  inten- 
tions were  good, — why  shouldn't  he  pull  some  of  the 
splendid  stuff  into  his  poor,  lame  little  home?  Why 
should  he  let  himself  drop  back  from  heights  lilce  those 
to  the  old  ridiculous  timidities,  the  miserable  habit  of 
avoiding  the  truth?  Rebellion,  hope,  determination, 
seized  Mr.  Twist.  His  eyes  shone  behind  his  spec- 
tacles. His  ears  were  two  red  flags  of  revolution. 
He  gripped  hold  of  the  twins,  one  under  each  arm. 

"You  come  right  in,"  he  said,  louder  than  he  had 
ever  spoken  in  his  life.  "Edith,  see  these  girls? 
They're  the  two  Annas.  Their  other  name  is  Twinkler, 
but  Anna'll  see  you  through.  They  want  supper,  and 
they  want  beds,  and  they  want  affection,  and  they're 
going  to  get  it  all.  So  hustle  with  the  food,  and  send 
the  Cadillac  for  their  baggage,  and  ^x  up  things  for 
them  as  comfortably  as  you  know  how.  And  as  for 
Mrs.  Sack,"  he  said,  looking  first  at  one  twin  and  then 


174        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLTOvIBUS 

at  the  other,  "if  it  hadn't  been  for  her  running  away 
from  her  worthless  husband — I'm  convinced  that 
fellow  Sack  is  worthless — you  might  never  have  come 
here  at  all.  So  you  see,"  he  finished,  laughing  at  Anna- 
Rose,  "how  good  comes  out  of  evil." 

And  with  the  sound  of  these  words  preceding  him, 
he  pushed  open  the  dining-room  door  and  marched 
them  in. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

^T  THE  head  of  the  table  sat  his  mother;  long, 

ZJk'  straight,  and  grave.  She  was  in  the  seat  of 
X  JL  authority,  the  one  with  its  back  to  the  windows 
and  its  face  to  the  door,  from  whence  she  could  see 
what  everybody  did,  especially  Amanda.  Having 
seen  what  Amanda  did,  she  then  complained  to  Edith. 
She  didn't  complain  direct  to  Amanda,  because  Amanda 
could  and  did  give  notice. 

Her  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  door.  Between  it  and  her 
was  the  table,  covered  with  admirable  things  to  eat, 
it  being  supper  and  therefore,  according  to  a  Twist 
tradition  surviving  from  penurious  days,  all  the  food, 
hot  and  cold,  sweet  and  salt,  being  brought  in  together, 
and  Amanda  only  attending  when  rung  for.  Half- 
eaten  oyster  patties  lay  on  Mrs.  Twist's  plate.  In  her 
glass  neglected  champagne  had  bubbled  itself  flat. 
Her  hand  still  held  her  fork,  but  loosely,  as  an  object 
that  had  lost  its  interest,  and  her  eyes  and  ears  for  the 
last  five  minutes  had  not  departed  from  the  door. 

At  first  she  had  felt  mere  resigned  annoyance  that 
Amanda  shouldn't  have  answered  the  bell,  but  she 
didn't  wish  to  cast  a  shadow  over  Edward's  home- 
coming by  drawing  poor  Edith's  attention  before  him 
to  how  very  badly  she  trained  the  helps,  and  therefore 
she  said  nothing  at  the  moment;  then,  when  Edith, 
going  in  search  of  Amanda,  had  opened  the  door  and 
let  in  sounds  of  argument,  she  was  surprised,  for  she 
knew  no  one  so  intimately  that  they  would  be  likely  to 

175 


176        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

call  at  such  an  hour;  but  when  Edward  too  leapt  up> 
and  went  out  and  stayed  out  and  failed  to  answer 
her  repeated  calls,  she  was  first  astonished,  then  indig- 
nant, and  then  suddenly  was  overcome  by  a  cold 
foreboding. 

Mrs.  Twist  often  had  forebodings,  and  they  were 
always  cold.  They  seized  her  with  bleak  fingers;  and 
one  of  Edith's  chief  functions  was  to  comfort  and  reas- 
sure her  for  as  long  a  while  each  time  as  was  required  to 
reach  the  stage  of  being  able  to  shake  them  off.  Here 
was  one,  however,  too  icily  convincing  to  be  shaken  off. 
It  fell  upon  her  with  the  swiftness  of  a  revelation. 
Something  unpleasant  was  going  to  happen  to  her; 
somethmg  perhaps  worse  than  unpleasant, — ^disastrous. 
And  something  immediate. 

Those  excited  voices  out  in  the  hall, — they  were 
young,  surely,  and  they  were  feminine.  Also  they 
sounded  most  intimate  with  Edward.  What  had  he 
been  concealing  from  her.^^  What  disgracefulness  had 
penetrated  through  him,  through  the  son  the  neigh- 
bourhood thought  so  much  of,  into  her  very  home? 
She  was  a  widow.  He  was  her  only  son.  Impossible 
to  believe  he  would  betray  so  sacred  a  position,  that 
he  whom  she  had  so  lovingly  and  proudly  welcomed  a 
few  hours  before  would  allow  his — well,  she  really 
didn't  know  what  to  call  them,  but  anyhow  female 
friends  of  whom  she  had  been  told  nothing,  to  enter 
that  place  which  to  every  decent  human  being  is  inviol- 
able, his  mother's  home.  Yet  Mrs.  Twist  did  instantly 
believe  it. 

Then  Edward's  voice,  raised  and  defiant — surely 
defiant!^ — came  through  the  crack  in  the  door,  and  every 
word  he  said  was  quite  distinct.  Anna;  supper; 
affection.     .     .     .     Mrs.  Twist  sat  frozen.     And  then 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        177 

the  door  was  flung  open  and  Edward  tumultuously 
entered,  his  ears  crimson,  his  face  as  she  had  never  seen, 
it,  and  in  each  hand,  held  tightly  by  the  arm,  a  girl. 

Edward  had  been  deceiving  her. 

"Mother "  he  began. 

"How  do  you  do,"  said  the  girls  together,  and  act- 
ually with  smiles. 

Edward  had  been  deceiving  her.  That  whole  after- 
noon how  quiet  he  had  been,  how  listless.  Quite 
gentle,  quite  affectionate,  but  listless  and  untalkative. 
She  had  thought  he  must  be  tired;  worn  out  with  his 
long  journey  across  from  Europe.  She  had  made 
allowances  for  him;  been  sympathetic,  been  consider- 
ate. And  look  at  him  now.  Never  had  she  seen  him 
with  a  face  like  that.  He  was — ^Mrs.  Twist  groped 
for  the  word  and  reluctantly  found  it — rollicking. 
Yes;  that  was  the  word  that  exactly  described  him — 
rollicking.  If  she  hadn't  observed  his  languor  up  to  a 
few  minutes  ago  at  supper,  and  seen  him  with  her  own 
eyes  refuse  champagne  and  turn  his  back  on  cocktails, 
she  would  have  been  forced  to  the  conclusion,  dreadful 
though  it  was  to  a  mother,  that  he  had  been  drinking. 
And  the  girls !     Two  of  them.     And  so  young. 

Mrs.  Twist  had  known  Edward,  as  she  sometimes 
informed  Edith,  all  his  life,  and  had  not  yet  found  any- 
thing in  his  morals  which  was  not  blameless.  Watch 
him  with  what  loving  care  she  might  she  had  found 
nothing;  and  she  was  sure  her  mother's  instinct  would 
not  have  failed  her.  Nevertheless,  even  with  that  white 
past  before  her — he  hadn't  told  her  about  "Madame 
Bo  vary" — she  now  instantly  believed  the  worst. 

It  was  the  habit  of  Clark  to  believe  the  worst.  Clark 
was  very  small,  and  therefore  also  very  virtuous. 
Each  inhabitant  was  the  careful  guardian  of  his  neigh- 


178        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

hour's  conduct.  Nobody  there  ever  did  anything 
that  was  wrong;  there  wasn't  a  chance.  But  as  Nature 
insists  on  a  balance,  the  minds  of  Clark  dwelt  curiously 
on  evil.  They  were  minds  active  in  suspicion.  They 
leapt  with  an  instantaneous  agility  at  the  worst  con- 
clusions. Nothing  was  ever  said  in  Clark,  but  every- 
thing was  thought.  The  older  inhabitants,  made  fast 
prisoners  in  their  mould  of  virtue  by  age,  watched  with 
jealous  care  the  behaviour  of  those  still  young  enough 
to  attract  temptation.  The  younger  ones,  brought  up 
in  inhibitions,  settled  down  to  wakefulness  in  regard  to 
each  other.  Everything  was  provided  and  encouraged 
in  Clark,  a  place  of  pleasant  orchards  and  gentle  fields, 
except  the  things  that  had  to  do  with  love.  Husbands 
were  there;  and  there  was  a  public  library,  and  social 
afternoons,  and  an  Emerson  society.  The  husbands 
died  before  the  wives,  being  less  able  to  coi>e  with 
virtue;  and  a  street  in  Clark  of  smaller  houses  into 
which  their  widows  gravitated  had  been  christened  by 
the  stationmaster — a  more  worldly  man  because  of  his 
three  miles  off  and  all  the  trains — ^Lamentation  Lane. 

In  this  village  Mrs.  Twist  had  lived  since  her  mar- 
riage, full  of  dignity  and  honour.  As  a  wife  she  had 
been  full  of  it,  for  the  elder  Mr.  Twist  had  been  good 
even  when  alive,  and  as  a  widow  she  had  been  still 
fuller,  for  the  elder  Mr.  Twist  positively  improved  by 
being  dead.  Not  a  breath  had  ever  touched  her  and 
her  children.  Not  the  most  daring  and  distrustful 
Clark  mind  had  ever  thought  of  her  except  respect- 
fully. And  now  here  was  this  hapi>ening  to  her;  at  her 
age;  when  she  was  least  able  to  bear  it. 

She  sat  in  silence,  staring  with  sombre  eyes  at  the 
three  figures. 

"Mother "  began  Edward  again;  but  was  again 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        179 

interrupted  by  the  twins,  who  said  together,  as  they 
had  now  got  into  the  habit  of  saying  when  confronted 
by  silent  and  surprised  Americans,  "We've  come." 

It  wasn't  that  they  thought  it  a  particularly  good 
conversational  opening,  it  was  because  silence  and 
surprise  on  the  part  of  the  other  person  seemed  to  call 
for  explanation  on  theirs,  and  they  were  constitution- 
ally desirous  of  giving  all  the  information  in  their  power. 

"How  do  you  do,"  they  then  repeated,  loosening 
themselves  from  Mr.  Twist  and  advancing  down  the 
room  with  outstretched  hands. 

Mr.  Twist  came  with  them.  "Mother,"  he  said, 
"these  are  the  Twinkler  girls.  Their  name's  Twinkler. 
They " 

Freed  as  he  felt  he  was  from  his  old  bonds,  deter- 
mined as  he  felt  he  was  on  emulating  the  perfect  can- 
dour and  simplicity  of  the  twins  and  the  perfect  can- 
dour and  simplicity  of  his  comrades  in  France,  his 
mother's  dead  want  of  the  smallest  reaction  to  this 
announcement  tripped  him  up  for  a  moment  and  pre- 
vented his  going  on. 

But  nothing  ever  prevented  the  twins  going  on. 
If  they  were  pleased  and  excited  they  went  on  with 
cheerful  gusto,  and  if  they  were  unnerved  and  fright- 
ened they  still  went  on, — perhaps  even  more  volubly, 
anxiously  seeking  cover  behind  a  multitude  of  words. 

Mrs.  Twist  had  not  yet  unnerved  and  frightened 
them,  because  they  were  too  much  delighted  that  they 
had  got  to  her  at  all.  The  relief  Anna-Rose  expe- 
rienced at  having  safely  piloted  that  difficult  craft, 
the  clumsy  if  adorable  Columbus,  into  a  respectable 
port  was  so  immense  that  it  immediately  vented  itself 
in  words  of  warmest  welcome  to  the  lady  in  the  chair 
to  her  own  home. 


180        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"We're  so  glad  to  see  you  here,"  she  said,  smiling 
till  her  dimple  seemed  to  be  everywhere  at  once,  and 
hardly  able  to  refrain  from  giving  the  lady  a  welcoming 
hug  instead  of  just  inhospitably  shaking  her  hand. 
She  couldn't  even  shake  her  hand,  however,  because  it 
still  held,  immovably,  the  fork.  "It  would  have  been 
too  awful,"  Anna-Rose  therefore  finished,  putting  the 
heartiness  of  the  handshake  she  wanted  to  give  into 
her  voice  instead,  "if  you  had  happened  to  have  run 
away  too." 

"As  Mrs.  Sack  has  done  from  her  husband,"  Anna- 
FeHcitas  explained,  smiling  too,  benevolently,  at  the 
black  lady  who  actually  having  got  oyster  patties  on 
her  plate  hadn't  bothered  to  eat  them.  "But  of  course 
you  couldn't,"  she  went  on,  remembering  in  time  to  be 
tactful  and  make  a  sympathetic  reference  to  the  lady's 
weeds;  which,  indeed,  considering  Mr.  Twist  had  told 
her  and  Anna-Rose  that  his  father  had  died  when  he 
was  ten,  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  seemed  to 
have  kept  their  heads  up  astonishingly  and  stayed  very 
fresh.  And  true  to  her  German  training,  and  un- 
daunted by  the  fork,  she  did  that  which  Anna-Rose  in 
her  contentment  had  forgotten,  and  catching  up  Mrs. 
Twist's  right  hand,  fork  and  all,  to  her  lips  gave  it  the 
brief  ceremonious  kiss  of  a  well  brought  up  Junker; 

Like  Amanda's,  Mrs.  Twist's  life  had  been  up  to  this 
empty  of  Junkers.  She  had  never  even  heard  of  them 
till  the  war,  and  pronounced  their  name,  and  so  did  the 
rest  of  Clark  following  her  lead,  as  if  it  had  been  junket, 
only  with  an  r  instead  of  a  t  at  the  end.  She  didn't 
therefore  recognize  the  action;  but  even  she,  outraged 
as  she  was,  could  not  but  see  its  grace.  And  looking 
up  in  sombre  hostility  at  the  little  head  bent  over 
her  hand  and  at  the  dark  line  of  eyelashes  on  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        181 

delicate,  flushed  face,  she  thought  swiftly,  ''She's  the 


one." 


"You  see,  mother,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  pulling  a  chair 
out  vigorously  and  sitting  on  it  with  determination, 
"it's  like  this.  (Sit  down,  you  two,  and  get  eating. 
Start  on  anything  you  see  in  this  show  that  hits  your 
fancy.  Edith'll  be  fetching  you  something  hot,  I 
expect — soup,  or  something — ^but  meanwhile  here's 
enough  stuff  to  go  on  with.)  You  see,  mother — "  he 
resumed,  turning  squarely  to  her,  while  the  twins 
obeyed  him  with  immense  alacrity  and  sat  down  and 
began  to  eat  whatever  happened  to  be  nearest  them, 
"these  two  girls — well,  to  start  with  they're  twins " 

Mr.  Twist  was  stopped  again  by  his  mother's  face. 
She  couldn't  conceive  why  he  should  lie.  Twins  the 
world  over  matched  in  size  and  features;  it  was  no- 
torious that  they  did.  Also,  it  was  the  custom  for  them 
to  match  in  age,  and  the  tall  one  of  these  was  at  least 
a  year  older  than  the  other  one.  But  still,  thought 
Mrs.  Twist,  let  that  pass.  She  would  suffer  whatever 
it  was  she  had  to  suffer  in  silence. 

The  twins  too  were  silent,  because  they  were  so  busy 
eating.  Perfectly  at  home  under  the  wing  they  knew 
so  well,  they  behaved  with  an  easy  naturalness  that 
appeared  to  Mrs.  Twist  outrageous.  But  still — ^let  that 
too  pass.  These  strangers  helped  themselves  and 
helped  each  other,  as  if  everything  belonged  to  them; 
and  the  tall  one  actually  asked  her — ^her,  the  mistress 
of  the  house — if  she  could  get  her  anything.  Well, 
let  that  pass  too. 

"You  see,  mother "  began  Mr.  Twist  again. 

He  was  finding  it  extraordinarily  difficult.  What 
a  tremendous  hold  one's  early  training  had  on  one,  he 
reflected,   casting   about   for   words;    what   a   deeply 


182        CimiSTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

rooted  fear  there  was  in  one,  subconscious,  lurking  in 
one's  foundations,  of  one's  mother,  of  her  authority,  of 
her  quickly  wounded  affection.  Those  Jesuits,  with 
their  conviction  that  they  could  do  what  they  liked  with 
a  man  if  they  had  had  the  bringing  up  of  him  till  he 
was  seven,  were  pretty  near  the  truth.  It  took  a  lot  of 
shaking  off,  the  unquestioning  awe,  the  habit  of  obe- 
dience of  one's  childhood. 

Mr.  Twist  sat  endeavouring  to  shake  it  off.  He  also 
tried  to  bolster  himself  up  by  thinking  he  might  per- 
haps be  able  to  assist  his  mother  to  come  out  from  her 
narrowness,  and  discover  too  how  warm  and  glorious 
the  sun  shone  outside,  where  people  loved  and  helped 
each  other.     Then  he  rejected  that  as  priggish. 

"You  see,  mother,"  he  started  again,  "I  came  across 
them — across  these  two  girls — they're  both  called 
Anna,  by  the  way,  which  seems  confusing  but  isn't 
really — I  came  across  them  on  the  boat " 

He  again  stopped  dead. 

Mrs.  Twist  had  turned  her  dark  eyes  to  him.  They 
had  been  fixed  on  Anna-Felicitas,  and  on  what  she  was 
doing  with  the  dish  of  oyster  patties  in  front  of  her. 
What  she  was  doing  was  not  what  Mrs.  Twist  was 
accustomed  to  see  done  at  her  table.  Anna-Felicitas 
was  behaving  badly  with  the  patties,  and  not  even 
attempting  to  conceal,  as  the  decent  do,  how  terribly 
they  interested  her. 

"You  came  across  them  on  the  boat,"  repeated  Mrs. 
Twist,  her  eyes  on  her  son,  moved  in  spite  of  her  resolu- 
tion to  speech.  And  he  had  told  her  that  very  after- 
noon that  he  had  spoken  to  nobody  except  men. 
Another  lie.     Well,  let  that  pass  too.     .     .     .^ 

Mr.  Twist  sat  staring  back  at  her  through  his  big 
gleaming  spectacles.     He  well  knew  the  weakness  of 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        183 

his  position  from  his  mother's  point  of  view;  but  why 
should  she  have  such  a  point  of  view,  such  a  niggHng, 
narrow  one,  determined  to  stay  angry  and  offended 
because  he  had  been  stupid  enough  to  continue,  under 
the  influence  of  her  presence,  the  old  system  of  not 
being  candid  with  her,  of  being  slavishly  anxious  to 
avoid  offending?  Let  her  try  for  once  to  understand 
and  forgive.  Let  her  for  once  take  the  chance  offered 
her  of  doing  a  big,  kind  thing.  But  as  he  stared  at  her 
it  entered  his  mind  that  he  couldn't  very  well  start 
moving  her  heart  on  behalf  of  the  twins  in  their  pres- 
ence. He  couldn't  tell  her  they  were  orphans,  alone 
in  the  world,  helpless,  poor,  and  so  unfortunately  Ger- 
man, with  them  sitting  there.  If  he  did,  there  would 
be  trouble.  The  twins  seemed  absorbed  for  the 
moment  in  getting  fed,  but  he  had  no  doubt  their  ears 
were  attentive,  and  at  the  first  suggestion  of  sympathy 
being  invoked  for  them  they  would  begin  to  say  a  few 
of  those  things  he  was  so  much  afraid  his  mother 
mightn't  be  able  to  understand.  Or,  if  she  under- 
stood, appreciate. 

He  decided  that  he  would  be  quiet  until  Edith  came 
back,  and  then  ask  his  mother  to  go  to  the  drawing- 
room  with  him,  and  while  Edith  was  looking  after  the 
Annas  he  would,  well  out  of  earshot,  explain  them  to 
his  mother,  describe  their  situation,  commend  them  to 
her  patience  and  her  love.  He  sat  silent  therefore, 
wishing  extraordinarily  hard  that  Edith  would  be 
quick. 

But  Anna-Felicitas's  eyes  were  upon  him  now,  as  well 
as  his  mother's.  "Is  it  possible,"  she  asked  with  her 
own  peculiar  gentleness,  balancing  a  piece  of  patty 
on  her  fork,  "that  you  haven't  yet  mentioned  us  to 
your  mother.^" 


184        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

And  Anna-Rose,  struck  in  her  turn  at  such  an  omis- 
sion, paused  too  with  food  on  the  way  to  her  mouth, 
and  said,  "And  we  such  friends?" 

"Almost,  as  it  were,  still  red-not  from  being  with 
you?"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

Both  the  twins  looked  at  Mrs.  Twist  in  their  surprise. 

"I  thought  the  first  thing  everybody  did  when  they 
got  back  to  their  mother,"  said  Anna-Rose,  addressing 
her,  "was  to  tell  her  everything  from  the  beginning." 

Mrs.  Twist,  after  an  instant's  astonishment  at  this 
unexpected  support,  bowed  her  head — it  could  hardly 
be  called  a  nod — in  her  son's  direction.  "You  see — " 
the  movement  seemed  to  say,  "even  these     .     .     ." 

"And  ever  since  the  first  day  at  sea,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  also  addressing  Mrs.  Twist,  "up  to  as  recently 
as  eleven  o'clock  last  night,  he  has  been  what  I  think 
can  be  quite  accurately  described  as  our  faithful  two- 
footed  companion." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "As  much  as  that  we've 
been  friends.     Practically  inseparable." 

"So  that  it  really  is  very  surprising,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  to  Mr.  Twist,  "that  you  didn't  tell  your 
mother  about  us." 

Mr.  Twist  got  up.  He  wouldn't  wait  for  Edith. 
It  was  unhealthy  in  that  room. 

He  took  his  mother's  arm  and  helped  her  to  get  up. 
"You're  very  wise,  you  two,"  he  flung  at  the  twins  in 
the  voice  of  the  goaded,  "but  you  may  take  it  from  me 
you  don't  know  everything  yet.  Mother,  come  into 
the  drawing-room,  and  we'll  talk.  Edith'll  see  to  these 
girls.  I  expect  I  ought  to  have  talked  sooner,"  he 
went  on,  as  he  led  her  to  the  door,  "but  confound  it  all, 
I've  only  been  home  about  a  couple  of  hours." 

"Five,"  said  Mrs.  Twist. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        185 

"Five  then.     What's  five?    No  time  at  all." 
"Ample,"  said  Mrs.  Twist;  adding  icily,  "and  did  I 

hear  you  say  confound,  Edward  .f^" 

"Well,  damn  then,"  said  Edward  very  loud,  in  a  rush 

of  rank  rebellion. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THIS  night  was  the  turning-point  in  Mr.  Twist's 
life.  In  it  he  broke  loose  from  his  mother.  He 
spent  a  terrible  three  hours  with  her  in  the 
drawing-room,  and  the  rest  of  the  night  he  strode  up 
and  down  his  bedroom.  The  autumn  morning,  creep- 
ing round  the  house  in  long  v/hite  wisps,  found  him 
staring  out  of  his  window  very  pale,  liis  mouth  pulled 
together  as  tight  as  it  would  go. 

His  mother  had  failed  him.  She  had  not  under- 
stood. And  not  only  simply  not  understood,  but  she 
had  said  things  when  at  last  she  did  speak,  after  he  had 
explained  and  pleaded  for  at  least  an  hour,  of  an  incred- 
ible bitterness  and  injustice.  She  had  seemed  to  hate 
him.  If  she  hadn't  been  his  mother  Mr.  Twist  would 
have  been  certain  she  hated  him,  but  he  still  believed 
that  mothers  couldn't  hate  their  children.  It  Vv^as 
stark  against  nature;  and  Mr.  Twist  still  believed  in  the 
fundamental  rightness  of  that  which  is  called  nature. 
She  had  accused  him  of  gross  things — she,  his  mother, 
who  from  her  conversation  since  he  could  remember 
was  unaware,  he  had  judged,  of  the  very  existence  of 
such  things.  Those  helpless  children  .  .  .  Mr. 
Twist  stamped  as  he  strode.  Well,  he  had  made  her 
take  that  back;  and  indeed  she  had  afterwards  admitted 
that  she  said  it  in  her  passion  of  grief  and  disappoint- 
ment, and  that  it  was  evident  these  girls  were  not  like 
that. 

But  before  they  reached  that  stage,  for  the  first  time 

186 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        187 

in  his  life  he  had  been  saying  straight  out  what  he 
wanted  to  say  to  his  mother  just  as  if  she  had  been  an 
ordinary  human  being.  He  told  her  all  he  knew  of  the 
twins,  asked  her  to  take  them  in  for  the  present  and  be 
good  to  them,  and  explained  the  awkwardness  of  their 
position,  apart  from  its  tragedy,  as  Germans  by  birth 
stranded  in  New  England,  where  opinion  at  that  mo- 
ment was  so  hostile  to  Germans.  Then,  continuing 
in  candour,  he  had  told  his  mother  that  here  was  her 
chance  of  doing  a  fine  and  beautiful  thing,  and  it  was  at 
this  point  that  Mrs.  Twist  suddenly  began,  on  her  side, 
to  talk. 

She  had  listened  practically  in  silence  to  the  rest; 
had  only  started  when  he  explained  the  girls'  nation- 
ality; but  when  he  came  to  offering  her  these  girls  as 
the  great  opportunity  of  her  life  to  do  something  really 
good  at  last,  she,  who  felt  she  had  been  doing  nothing 
else  but  noble  and  beautiful  things,  and  doing  them 
with  the  most  single-minded  devotion  to  duty  and  the 
most  consistent  disregard  of  inclination,  could  keep 
silence  no  longer.  Had  she  not  borne  her  great  loss 
without  a  murmur?  Had  she  not  devoted  all  her  years 
to  bringing  up  her  son  to  be  a  good  man.^^  Had  she 
ever  considered  herself.?  Had  she  ever  flagged  in 
her  efforts  to  set  an  example  of  patience  in  grief,  of 
dignity  in  misfortune.?  She  began  to  speak.  And 
just  as  amazed  as  she  had  been  at  the  things  this 
strange,  unknown  son  had  been  saying  to  her  and  at 
the  manner  of  their  delivery,  so  was  he  amazed  at  the 
things  this  strange,  unknown  mother  was  saying  to  him, 
and  at  the  manner  of  their  delivery. 

Yet  his  amazement  was  not  so  great  after  all  as  hers. 
Because  for  years,  away  down  hidden  somewhere  inside 
him,  he  had  doubted  his  mother;  for  years  he  had. 


188        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

shocked  at  himself,  covered  up  and  trampled  on  these 
unworthy  doubts  indignantly.  He  had  doubted  her 
unselfishness;  he  had  doubted  her  sympathy  and  kind- 
liness; he  had  even  doubted  her  honesty,  her  ordinary 
honesty  with  money  and  accounts;  and  lately,  before 
he  went  to  Europe,  he  had  caught  himself  thinking  she 
was  cruel.  Nevertheless  this  unexpected  naked  justi- 
fication of  his  doubts  was  shattering  to  him. 

But  Mrs.  Twist  had  never  doubted  Edward.  She 
thought  she  knew  him  inside  out.  She  had  watched 
him  develop.  Watched  him  during  the  long  years  of 
his  unconsciousness.  She  had  been  quite  secure;  and 
rather  disposed,  also  somewhere  down  inside  her,  to  a 
contempt  for  him,  so  easy  had  he  been  to  manage,  so 
ready  to  do  ev^ery thing  she  wished.  Now  it  appeared 
that  she  no  more  knew  Edward  than  if  he  had  been  a 
stranger  in  the  street. 

The  bursting  of  the  dykes  of  convention  between 
them  was  a  horrible  thing  to  them  both.  Mr.  Twist 
had  none  of  the  cruelty  of  the  younger  generation  to 
support  him:  he  couldn't  shrug  his  shoulder  and  take 
conifort  in  the  thought  that  this  break  between  them 
was  entirely  his  mother's  fault,  for  however  much  he 
beheved  it  to  be  her  fault  the  belief  merely  made  him 
wretched;  he  had  none  of  the  pitiless  black  pleasure  to 
be  got  from  telling  himself  it  served  her  right.  So 
naturally  kind  was  he — weak,  soft,  stupid,  his  mother 
shook  out  at  him — that  through  all  his  own  shame  at 
this  naked  vision  of  what  had  been  carefully  dressed  up 
for  years  in  dignified  clothes  of  wisdom  and  affection, 
he  was  actually  glad,  when  he  had  time  in  his  room  to 
think  it  over,  glad  she  should  be  so  passionately  positive 
that  he,  and  only  he,  was  in  the  wrong.  It  would  save 
her  from  humiliation;  and  of  the  painful  things  of  life 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        189 

Mr.  Twist  could  least  bear  to  see  a  human  being 
humiliated. 

That  was,  however,  towards  morning.  For  hours 
he  raged,  striding  about  his  room,  sorting  out  the  frag- 
ments into  which  his  life  as  a  son  had  fallen,  trying  to 
fit  them  into  some  sort  of  a  pattern,  to  see  clear  about 
the  future.  Clearer.  Not  clear.  He  couldn't  hope 
for  that  yet.  The  future  seemed  one  confused  lump. 
All  he  could  see  really  clear  of  it  was  that  he  was  going, 
next  day,  and  taking  the  twins.  He  would  take  them 
to  the  other  people  they  had  a  letter  to,  the  people  in 
California,  and  then  turn  his  face  back  to  Europe,  to 
the  real  thing,  to  the  greatness  of  life  where  death  is. 
Not  an  hour  longer  than  he  could  help  would  he  or  they 
stay  in  that  house.  He  had  told  his  mother  he  would 
go  away,  and  she  had  said,  "I  hope  never  to  see  you 
again."  Who  would  have  thought  she  had  so  much  of 
passion  in  her.?  Who  would  have  thought  he  had  so 
much  of  it  in  him.? 

Fury  against  her  injustice  shook  and  shattered  Mr. 
Twist.  Not  so  could  fair  and  affectionate  living  to- 
gether be  conducted,  on  that  basis  of  suspicion,  distrust, 
jealousy.  Through  his  instinct,  though  not  through 
his  brain,  shot  the  conviction  that  his  mother  was 
jealous  of  the  twins, — jealous  of  the  youth  of  the  twins, 
and  of  their  prettiness,  and  goodness,  and  of  the  power, 
unknown  to  them,  that  these  things  gave  them.  His 
brain  was  impervious  to  such  a  conviction,  because  it 
was  an  innocent  brain,  and  the  idea  would  never  have 
entered  it  that  a  woman  of  his  mother's  age,  well  over 
sixty,  could  be  jealous  in  that  way;  but  his  instinct 
knew  it. 

The  last  thing  his  mother  said  as  he  left  the 
drawing-room  was,  "You  have  killed  me.     You  have 


190        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

killed  your  own  mother.  And  just  because  of  those 
gh'ls." 

And  Mr.  Twist,  shocked  at  this  parting  shot  of 
unfairness,  could  find,  search  as  he  might,  nothing  to 
be  said  for  his  mother's  point  of  view.  It  simply  wasn't 
true.     It  simply  was  delusion. 

Nor  could  she  find  anything  to  be  said  for  his,  but 
then  she  didn't  try  to,  it  was  so  manifestly  unforgivable. 
All  she  could  do,  faced  by  this  bitter  sorrow,  was  to 
leave  Edward  to  God.  Sternly,  as  he  flung  out  of  the 
room  at  last,  unsoftened,  untouchable,  deaf  to  her 
even  when  she  used  the  tone  he  had  always  obeyed, 
the  tone  of  authority,  she  said  to  herself  she  must  leave 
her  son  to  God.  God  knew.  God  would  judge.  And 
Clark  too  would  know;  and  Clark  too  would  judge. 

Left  alone  in  the  drawing-room  on  this  terrible  night 
of  her  second  great  bereavement,  Mrs.  Twist  was  yet 
able,  she  was  thankful  to  feel,  to  resolve  she  would  try 
to  protect  her  son  as  long  as  she  could  from  Clark. 
From  God  she  could  not,  if  she  would,  protect  him; 
but  she  would  try  to  protect  him  even  now,  as  she  had 
always  protected  him,  from  earthly  harm  and  hurt. 
Clark  would,  however,  surely  know  in  time,  protect 
as  she  might,  and  judge  between  her  and  Edward. 
God  knew  already,  and  was  already  judging.  God 
and  Clark.     .     .     .    Poor  Edward. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  twins,  who  had  gone  to  bed  at  half -past  nine, 
shepherded  by  Edith,  in  the  happy  conviction 
that  they  had  settled  down  comfortably  for 
some  time,  were  surprised  to  find  at  breakfast  that 
they  hadn't. 

They  had  taken  a  great  fancy  to  Edith,  in  spite  of  a 
want  of  restfulness  on  her  part  that  struck  them  while 
they  were  finishing  their  supper,  and  to  which  at  last 
they  drew  her  attention.  She  was  so  kind,  and  so  like 
Mr.  Twist;  but  though  she  looked  at  them  with  hospit- 
able eyes  and  wore  an  expression  of  real  benevolence, 
it  didn't  escape  their  notice  that  she  seemed  to  be 
listening  to  something  that  wasn't,  anyhow,  them, 
and  to  be  expecting  something  that  didn't,  anyhow, 
happen.  She  went  several  times  to  the  door  through 
which  her  brother  and  mother  had  disappeared,  and  out 
into  whatever  part  of  the  house  lay  beyond  it,  and  when 
she  came  back  after  a  minute  or  two  was  as  wanting  in 
composure  as  ever. 

At  last,  finding  these  abrupt  and  repeated  interrup- 
tions hindered  any  real  talk,  they  pointed  out  to  her 
that  reasoned  conversation  was  impossible  if  one  of  the 
parties  persisted  in  not  being  in  the  room,  and  inquired 
of  her  whether  it  were  peculiar  to  her,  or  typical  of  the 
inhabitants  of  America,  to  keep  on  being  somewhere  else. 
Edith  smiled  abstractedly  at  them,  said  nothing, 
and  went  out  again. 

She  was  longer  away  this  time,  and  the  twins  having 

191 


192        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

eaten,  among  other  things,  a  great  many  meringues, 
grew  weary  of  sitting  with  those  they  hadn't  eaten 
lying  on  the  dish  in  front  of  them  reminding  them  of 
those  they  had.  They  wanted,  having  done  with 
meringues,  to  get  away  from  them  and  forget  them. 
They  wanted  to  go  into  another  room  now,  where  there 
w^eren't  any.  Anna-FeKcitas  felt,  and  told  Anna-Rose 
who  was  staring  listlessly  at  the  left-over  meringues, 
that  it  was  like  having  committed  murder,  and  being 
obliged  to  go  on  looking  at  the  body  long  after  you 
were  thoroughly  tired  of  it.  Anna-Rose  agreed,  and 
said  that  she  wished  now  she  hadn't  committed  me- 
ringues,— anyhow  so  many  of  them. 

Then  at  last  Edith  came  back,  and  told  them  she 
was  sure  they  were  very  tired  after  their  long  day,  and 
suggested  their  going  upstairs  to  their  rooms.  The 
rooms  were  ready,  said  Edith,  the  baggage  had  come, 
and  she  was  sure  they  would  like  to  have  nice  hot 
baths  and  go  to  bed. 

The  twins  obeyed  her  readily,  and  she  checked  a 
desire  on  their  part  to  seek  out  her  mother  and  brother 
first  and  bid  them  good-night,  on  the  ground  that  her 
mother  and  brother  were  busy;  and  while  the  twins  were 
expressing  polite  regret,  and  requesting  her  to  convey 
their  regret  for  them  to  the  proper  quarter  in  a  flow  of 
well-chosen  words  that  astonished  Edith,  who  didn't 
loiow  how  naturally  Junkers  make  speeches,  she  hur- 
ried them  by  the  drawing-room  door  through  which, 
shut  though  it  was,  came  sounds  of  people  being,  as 
Anna-Felicitas  remarked,  very  busy  indeed;  and  Anna- 
Rose,  impressed  by  the  quality  and  volume  of  Mr. 
Twist's  voice  as  it  reached  her  passing  ears,  told  Edith 
that  intimately  as  she  knew  her  brother  she  had  never 
known  him  as  busy  as  that  before. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         193 

Edith  said  nothing,  but  continued  quickly  up  the 
stairs. 

They  found  they  each  had  a  bedroom,  with  a  door 
between,  and  that  each  bedroom  had  a  bathroom  of  its 
own,  which  filled  them  with  admiration  and  pleasure. 
There  had  only  been  one  bathroom  at  Uncle  Arthur's, 
and  at  home  in  Pomerania  there  hadn't  been  any  at  alL 
The  baths  there  had  been  vessels  brought  into  one's 
bedroom  every  night,  into  which  servants  next  morning 
poured  water  out  of  buckets,  having  previously  pumped 
the  water  into  the  bucket  from  the  pump  in  the  back- 
yard. They  put  Edith  in  possession  of  these  facts 
while  she  helped  them  unpack  and  brushed  and  plaited 
their  hair  for  them,  and  she  was  much  astonished, — 
both  at  the  conditions  of  discomfort  and  slavery  they 
revealed  as  prevalent  in  other  countries,  and  at  the 
fact  that  they,  the  Twinklers,  should  hail  from 
Pomerania. 

Pomerania,  reflected  Edith  as  she  tied  up  their 
pigtails  with  the  ribbons  handed  to  her  for  that  purpose, 
used  to  be  in  Germany  when  she  went  to  school,  and 
no  doubt  still  was.  She  became  more  thoughtful  than 
ever,  though  she  still  smiled  at  them,  for  how  could  she 
help  it?  Everyone,  Edith  was  certain,  must  needs 
smile  at  the  Twinklers  even  if  they  didn't  happen  to 
be  one's  own  dear  brother's  protegees.  And  when  they 
came  out,  very  clean  and  with  scrubbed  pink  ears,  from 
their  bath,  she  not  only  smiled  at  them  as  she  tucked 
them  up  in  bed,  but  she  kissed  them  good-night. 

Edith,  like  her  brother,  was  born  to  be  a  mother, — 
one  of  the  satisfactory  sort  that  keeps  you  warm  and 
doesn't  argue  with  you.  Germans  or  no  Germans  the 
Twinklers  were  the  cutest  little  things,  thought  Edith; 
and  she  kissed  them,  with  the  same  hunger  with  which, 


194        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

being  now  thirty-eight,  she  was  beginning  to  kiss 
puppies. 

"You  remind  me  so  of  Mr.  Twist,"  murmured  Anna- 
Felicitas  sleepily,  as  Edith  tucked  her  up  and  kissed  her. 

"You  do  all  the  sorts  of  things  he  does,"  murmured 
Anna-Rose,  also  sleepily,  when  it  was  her  turn  to  be 
tucked  up  and  kissed;  and  in  spite  of  a  habit  now  fixed 
in  her  of  unquestioning  acceptance  and  uncritical  faith, 
Edith  went  downstairs  to  her  restless  vigil  outside  the 
drawing-room  door  a  little  surprised. 

At  breakfast  the  twins  learnt  to  their  astonishment 
that,  though  appearances  all  pointed  the  other  way, 
what  they  were  really  doing  was  not  being  stationary 
at  all,  but  merely  having  a  night's  lodging  and  breakfast 
between,  as  it  were,  two  trains. 

Mr.  Twist,  who  looked  pale  and  said  shortly  when 
the  twms  remarked  solicitously  on  it  that  he  felt  pale, 
briefly  announced  the  fact. 

"What?"  exclaimed  Anna-Rose,  staring  at  Mr. 
Twist  and  then  at  Edith — Mrs.  Twist,  they  were  told, 
was  breakfasting  in  bed — "Why,  we've  unpacked." 

"You  will  re-pack,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

They  found  difficulty  in  believing  their  ears. 

"But  we've  settled  in,"  remonstrated  Anna-FeHcitas, 
after  an  astonished  pause. 

"You  will  settle  out,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

He  frowned.  He  didn't  look  at  them,  he  frowned  at 
his  own  teapot.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  be  very 
short  with  the  Annas  until  they  were  safely  out  of  the 
house,  and  not  permit  himself  to  be  entangled  by  them 
in  controversy.  Also,  he  didn't  want  to  look  at  them 
if  he  could  help  it.  He  was  afraid  that  if  he  did  he 
might  be  unable  not  to  take  them  both  in  his  arms  and 
beg  their  pardon  for  the  whole  horridness  of  the  World. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        195 

But  if  he  didn't  look  at  them,  they  looked  at  him. 
Four  round,  blankly  surprised  eyes  were  fixed,  he  knew, 
unblinkingly  on  him. 

"We're  seeing  you  in  quite  a  new  light,"  said  Anna- 
Rose  at  last,  troubled  and  upset. 

"Maybe,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  frowning  at  his  teapot. 

"Perhaps  you  will  be  so  good,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
stiffly,  for  at  all  times  she  hated  being  stirred  up  and 
uprooted,  "as  to  tell  us  where  you  think  we're  going  to." 

"Because,"  said  Anna-Rose,  her  voice  trembling  a 
little,  not  only  at  the  thought  of  fresh  responsibilities, 
but  also  with  a  sense  of  outraged  faith,  "our  choice  of 
residence,  as  you  may  have  observed,  is  strictly  limited." 

Mr.  Twist,  who  had  spent  an  hour  before  breakfast 
with  Edith,  whose  eyes  were  red,  informed  them  that 
they  were  en  route  for  California. 

"To  those  other  people,"  said  Anna-Rose.     "I  see. 

She  held  her  head  up  straight. 

"Well,  I  expect  they'll  be  very  glad  to  see  us, 
she  said  after  a  silence;  and  proceeded,  her  chin  in  the 
air,  to  look  down  her  nose,  because  she  didn't  want  Mr. 
Twist,  or  Edith  or  Anna-Felicitas,  to  notice  that  her 
eyes  had  gone  and  got  tears  in  them.  She  angrily 
wished  she  hadn't  got  such  damp  eyes.  They  were  no 
better  than  swamps,  she  thought — undrained  swamps; 
and  directly  fate's  foot  came  down  a  little  harder  than 
usual,  up  oozed  the  lamentable  liquid.  Not  thus 
should  the  leader  of  an  expedition  behave.  Not  thus, 
she  was  sure,  did  the  original  Christopher.  She  pulled 
herself  together;  and  after  a  minute's  struggle  was 
able  to  leave  off  looking  down  her  nose. 

But  meanwhile  Anna-Felicitas  had  informed  Mr. 
Twist  with  gentle  dignity  that  he  was  obviously  tired 
of  them. 


95 


»> 


196        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

Anna-Felicitas  persisted.  "In  view  of  the  facts," 
she  said  gently,  "I'm  afraid  your  denial  carries  no 
weight." 

"The  facts,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  taking  up  his  teapot 
and  examining  it  with  care,  "are  that  I'm  coming  with 

you." 

"Oh  are  you,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  much  more 
briskly;  and  it  w^as  here  that  Anna-Rose's  eyes  dried 

up. 

"That  rather  dishes  your  theory,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 
still  turning  his  teapot  about  in  his  hands.  "Or  would 
if  it  didn't  happen  that  I — well,  I  happen  to  have  some 
business  to  do  in  California,  and  I  may  as  well  do  it  now 
as  later.  Still,  I  could  have  gone  by  a  different  route  or 
train,  so  you  see  your  theory  is  rather  dished,  isn't  it.^  " 

"A  little,"  admitted  Anna-Felicitas.  "Not  alto- 
gether. Because  if  you  really  like  our  being  here,  here 
we  are.     So  why  hurry  us  off  somewhere  else  so  soon.^^" 

Mr.  Twist  perceived  that  he  was  being  led  into  con- 
troversy in  spite  of  his  determination  not  to  be. 
"You're  very  wise,"  he  said  shortly,  "but  you  don't 
know  everything.  Let  us  avoid  conjecture  and  stick 
to  facts.  I'm  going  to  take  you  to  California,  and  hand 
you  over  to  your  friends.  That's  all  you  know,  and  all 
you  need  to  know." 

"As  Keats  very  nearly  said,"  said  Anna-Rose 

"And  if  our  friends  have  run  away.^"  suggested 
Anna-Felicitas. 

"Oh  Lord,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Twist  impatiently, 
putting  the  teapot  down  with  a  bang,  "do  you  think 
we're  running  away  all  the  time  in  America?" 

"Well,  I  think  you  seem  a  little  restless,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        197 

Thus  it  was  that  two  hours  later  the  twins  found 
themselves  at  the  Clark  station  once  more,  once  more 
starting  into  the  unknown,  just  as  if  they  had  never 
done  it  before,  and  gradually,  as  they  adapted  them- 
selves to  the  sudden  change,  such  is  the  india-rubber- 
like  quality  of  youth,  almost  with  the  same  hopefulness. 
Yet  they  couldn't  but  meditate,  left  alone  on  the  plat- 
form while  Mr.  Twist  checked  the  baggage,  on  the 
mutability  of  life.  They  seemed  to  live  in  a  kaleido- 
scope. Since  the  war  began  what  a  series  of  upheavals 
and  readjustments  had  been  theirs!  Silent,  and  a  little 
apart  on  the  Clark  platform,  they  reflected  retro- 
spectively; and  as  they  counted  up  their  various  starts 
since  the  days,  only  fourteen  months  ago,  when  they 
were  still  in  their  home  in  Germany,  apparently  as  safely 
rooted,  as  unshakably  settled  as  the  pine  trees  in  their 
own  forests,  they  couldn't  but  wonder  at  the  elusive- 
ness  of  the  unknown,  how  it  wouldn't  let  itself  be  caught 
up  with  and  at  the  trouble  it  was  giving  them. 

They  had  had  so  many  changes  in  the  last  year  that 
they  did  want  now  to  have  time  to  become  familiar 
with  some  one  place  and  people.  Already  however, 
being  seventeen,  they  were  telling  themselves,  and  each 
other  that  after  all,  since  the  Sacks  had  failed  them, 
California  was  their  real  objective.  Not  Clark  at  all. 
Clark  had  never  been  part  of  their  plans.  Uncle 
Arthur  and  Aunt  Alice  didn't  even  know  it  existed. 
It  was  a  side-show;  just  a  little  thing  of  their  own,  an 
extra  excursion  slipped  in  between  the  Sacks  and  the 
Delloggs.  True  they  had  hoped  to  stay  there  some 
time,  perhaps  even  for  months, — anyhow,  time  to 
mend  their  stockings  in,  which  were  giving  way  at  the 
toes  unexpectedly,  seeing  how  new  they  were;  but 
ultimately  California  was  the  place  they  had  to  go  to. 


198        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

It  was  only  that  it  was  a  little  upsetting  to  be  whisked 
out  of  Clark  at  a  moment's  notice. 

"I  expect  you'll  explain  everything  to  us  when  we're 
in  the  train  and  have  lots  of  time,"  Anna-Rose  had 
said  to  Mr.  Twist  as  the  car  moved  away  from  the  house 
and  Edith,  red-eyed,  waved  her  handkerchief  from  the 
doorstep. 

Mrs.  Twist  had  not  come  down  to  say  good-bye,  and 
they  had  sent  her  many  messages. 

*'I  expect  I  will,"  Mr.  Twist  had  answered. 

But  it  was  not  till  they  were  the  other  side  of  Chicago 
that  he  really  began  to  be  himself  again.  Up  to  then 
' — all  that  first  day,  and  the  next  morning  in  New  York 
where  he  took  them  to  the  bank  their  £200  was  in  and 
saw  that  they  got  a  cheque-book,  and  all  the  day  after 
that  waiting  in  the  Chicago  hotel  for  the  train  they 
were  to  go  on  in  to  California — Mr.  Twist  was  taciturn. 

They  left  Chicago  in  the  evening;  a  raw,  wintery 
October  evening  with  cold  rain  in  the  air,  and  the  twins, 
going  early  to  bed  in  their  compartment,  a  place  that 
seemed  to  them  so  enchanting  that  their  spirits  couldn't 
fail  to  rise,  saw  no  more  of  him  till  breakfast  next 
morning.  They  then  noticed  that  the  cloud  had  lifted 
a  little;  and  as  the  day  went  on  it  lifted  still  more. 
They  were  going  to  be  three  days  together  in  that  train, 
and  it  would  be  impossible  for  Mr.  Twist,  they  were  sure, 
to  go  on  being  taciturn  as  long  as  that.  It  wasn't  his 
nature.  His  nature  was  conversational.  And  besides, 
shut  up  like  that  in  a  train,  the  sheer  getting  tired  of 
reading  all  day  would  make  him  want  to  talk. 

So  after  lunch,  when  they  were  all  three  on  the  plat- 
form of  the  observation  car,  though  there  was  nothing 
to  observe  except  limitless  flat  stretches  of  bleak. and 
empty  country,  the  twins  suggested  that  he  should 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        199 

now  begin  to  talk  again.  They  pointed  out  that  his 
body  was  bound  to  get  stiff  on  that  long  journey  from 
want  of  exercise,  but  that  his  mind  needn't,  and  he  had 
better  stretch  it  by  conversing  agreeably  with  them  as 
he  used  to  before  the  day,  which  seemed  so  curiously 
long  ago,  when  they  landed  in  America. 

"It  does  indeed  seem  long  ago,"  agreed  Mr.  iwist, 
lighting  another  cigarette.  "  I  have  difficulty  m  realiz- 
ing it  isn't  a  week  yet." 

And  he  reflected  that  the  Annas  had  managed  to 
produce  pretty  serious  havoc  in  America  considering 
they  had  only  been  in  it  five  days.  He  and  his  mother 
permanently  estranged;  Edith  left  alone  at  Clark 
sitting  there  in  the  ruins  of  her  loving  preparations  tor 
his  return,  with  nothing  at  all  that  he  could  see  to  look 
forward  to  and  live  for  except  the  hourly  fulfilment  ot 
what  she  regarded  as  duty;  every  plan  upset;  the  lives, 
indeed,  of  his  mother  and  of  his  sister  and  of  himselt 
completely  altered,— it  was  a  pretty  big  bag  in  the  time, 
he  thought,  flinging  the  match  back  towards  Chicago. 

Mr.  Twist  felt  sore.  He  felt  like  somebody  who  had 
had  a  bad  tumble,  and  is  sore  and  a  httle  dizzy;  but  he 
recognized  that  these  great  ruptures  cannot  take  place 
without  aches  and  doubts.  He  ached,  and  he  doubted 
and  he  also  knew  through  his  aches  and  doubts  that 
he  was  free  at  last  from  what  of  late  years  he  had  so 
grievously  writhed  under— the  shame  of  pretence. 
And  the  immediate  cause  of  his  being  set  free  was, 

precisely,  the  Annas.  ^  .    ^  .4.  i,  j 

It  had  been  a  violent,  a  painful  settmg  free,  but  it  had 
happened;  and  who  knew  if,  without  their  sudden 
appearance  at  Clark  and  the  immediate  effect  they 
produced  on  his  mother,  he  wouldn't  have  lapsed  atter 
aU,  in  spite  of  the  feelings  and  determinations  he  had 


200        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

brought  back  with  him  from  Europe,  into  the  old  ways 
again  under  the  old  influence,  and  gone  on  ignobly 
pretending  to  agree,  to  approve,  to  enjoy,  to  love,  when 
he  was  never  for  an  instant  doing  anything  of  the  sort? 
He  might  have  trailed  on  like  that  for  years — Mr. 
Twist  didn't  like  the  picture  of  his  own  weakness,  but 
he  was  determined  to  look  at  himself  as  he  was — trailed 
along  languidly  when  he  was  at  home,  living  another 
life  when  he  was  away,  getting  what  he  absolutely 
must  have,  the  irreducible  minimum  of  personal  free- 
dom necessary  to  sanity,  by  means  of  small  and  shabby 
deceits.  My  goodness,  how  he  hated  deceits,  how  tired 
he  was  of  the  littleness  of  them! 

He  turned  his  head  and  looked  at  the  profiles  of  the 
Annas  sitting  alongside  him.  His  heart  suddenly 
grew  warm  within  him.  They  had  on  the  blue  caps 
again  which  made  them  look  so  bald  and  cherubic,  and 
their  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  straight  narrowing  lines  of 
rails  that  went  back  and  back  to  a  point  in  the  distance. 
The  dear  little  things;  the  dear,  dear  little  things, — so 
straightforward,  so  blessedly  straight  and  simple, 
thought  Mr.  Twist.  Fancy  his  mother  losing  a  chance 
like  this.  Fancy  anybody,  thought  the  affectionate 
and  kind  man,  missing  an  opportunity  of  helping  such 
imfortunately  placed  childi^en. 

The  twins  felt  he  was  looking  at  them,  and  together 
they  turned  and  looked  at  him.  When  they  saw  his 
expression  they  knew  the  cloud  had  lifted  still  more, 
and  their  faces  broke  into  broad  smiles  of  welcome. 

*'4t's  pleasant  to  see  you  back  again,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  heartily,  who  was  next  to  him. 

"We've  missed  you  very  much,"  said  Anna-Rose. 
"It  hasn't  been  like  the  same  place,  the  world  hasn't," 
said  Anna-Felicitas,  "since  you've  been  away." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        201 

"Since  you  walked  out  of  the  dining-room  that 
night  at  Clark,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Of  course  we  know  you  can't  always  be  with  us," 
said  Anna-Felicitas. 

**  Which  we  deeply  regret,"  interjected  Anna-Rose. 

"But  while  you  are  with  us,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
"for  these  last  few  days,  I  would  suggest  that  we  should 
be  happy.  As  happy  as  we  used  to  be  on  the  St.  Luke 
when  we  weren't  being  sea-sick."  And  she  thought 
she  might  even  go  so  far  as  to  enjoy  hearing  the  "Ode 
to  Dooty,"  now. 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose,  leaning  forward.  "In  three 
days  we  shall  have  disappeared  into  the  maw  of  the 
Delloggs.  Do  let  us  be  happy  while  we  can.  Who 
knows  what  their  maw  will  be  like?  But  whatever 
it's  like,"  she  added  firmly,  "we're  going  to  stick  in  it." 

"And  perhaps,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "now  that 
you're  a  little  restored  to  your  normal  condition,  you'll 
tell  us  what  has  been  the  matter." 

"For  it's  quite  clear,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "that  some- 
thing has  been  the  matter." 

"We've  been  talking  it  over,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
"and  putting  two  and  two  together,  and  perhaps  you'll 
tell  us  what  it  was,  and  then  we  shall  know  if  we're 
right." 

"Perhaps  I  will,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  cogitating,  as  he 
continued    benevolently    to    gaze    at    them.     "Let's 

see "     He  hesitated,  and  pushed  his  hat  off  his 

forehead.     "I  wonder  if  you'd  understand " 

"We'll  give  our  minds  to  it,"  Anna-Felicitas  assured 
him. 

"These  caps  make  us  look  more  stupid  than  we  are," 
Anna-Rose  assured  him,  deducing  her  own  appearance 
from  that  of  Anna-Felicitas. 


202        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Encouraged,  but  doubtful  of  their  capabilities  of 
comprehension  on  this  particular  point,  Mr.  Twist 
embarked  rather  gingerly  on  his  explanations.  He 
was  going  to  be  candid  from  now  on  for  the  rest  of  his 
days,  but  the  preliminary  plunges  were,  he  found,  after 
all  a  little  difficult.  Even  with  the  pellucidly  candid 
Annas,  all  ready  with  ears  pricked  up  attentively  and 
benevolently  and  minds  impartial,  he  found  it  difficult. 
It  was  because,  on  the  subject  of  mothers,  he  feared  he 
was  up  against  their  one  prejudice.  He  felt  rather 
than  knew  that  their  attitude  on  this  one  point  might 
be  uncompromising, — mothers  were  mothers,  and 
there  was  an  end  of  it;  that  sort  of  attitude,  coupled 
w^th  extreme  reprobation  of  himself  for  supposing 
anything  else. 

He  was  surprised  and  relieved  to  find  he  was  wrong. 
Directly  they  got  wind  of  the  line  his  explanations  were 
taking,  which  was  very  soon  for  they  were  giving  their 
minds  to  it  as  they  promised  and  Mr.  Twist's  hesita- 
tions were  illuminating,  they  interrupted. 

"So  we  were  right,"  they  said  to  each  other. 

"But  you  don't  know  yet  what  I'm  gomg  to  say,"  said 
Mr.  Twist.     "I've  only  started  on  the  preliminaries." 

"Yes  we  do.  You  fell  out  with  your  mother,"  said 
Anna-Rose. 

"Quarrelled,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  nodding 

"We  didn't  think  so  at  the  time,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"We  just  felt  there  was  an  atmosphere  of  strain  about 
Clark,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"But  talking  it  over  privately,  we  concluded  that 
was  what  had  happened." 

Mr.  Twist  was  so  much  surprised  that  for  a  moment 
he  could  only  say  "Oh."  Then  he  said,  "And  you're 
terribly  shocked,  I  suppose." 


« 
<( 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        203 

"Oh  no,"  they  said  airily  and  together. 

"No?" 

"You  see "  began  Anna-FeHcitas. 

You  see "  began  Anna-Rose. 

You  see,  as  a  general  principle,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 

it's  reprehensible  to  quarrel  with  one's  mother." 

"But  we've  not  been  able  to  escape  observing " 

said  Anna-Rose. 

"In  the  course  of  our  brief  and  inglorious  career," 
put  in  Anna-Felicitas. 

" — that    there    are    mothers    and    mothers,"    said 
Anna-Rose. 

"Yes,"  said  Mr.  Twist;  and  as  they  didn't  go  on  he 
presently  added,  "Yes.^^" 

"Oh,  that's  all,"  said  the  twins,  once  more  airily  and 
together. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

^FTER    this   brief  eclaircissement  the  rest  of  the 
/•^L     journey  was  happy.     Indeed,  it  is  doubtful  if 
X    ^  anj^  one  can  journey  to  Cahfornia  and  not  be 
happy. 

Mr.  Twist  had  never  been  further  west  than  Chicago, 
and  break  up  or  no  break  up  of  his  home  he  couldn't 
but  have  a  pleasant  feeling  of  adventure.  Every  now 
and  then  the  realization  of  this  feeling  gave  his  con- 
science a  twinge,  and  wrung  out  of  it  a  rebuke.  He 
was  having  the  best  of  it  in  this  business;  he  was  the 
party  in  the  quarrel  who  went  away,  who  left  the  dreari- 
ness of  the  scene  of  battle  with  all  its  corpses  of  dead 
illusions,  and  got  off  to  fresh  places  and  people  who  had 
never  heard  of  him.  Just  being  in  a  train,  he  found, 
and  rushing  on  to  somewhere  else  was  extraordinarily 
nerve-soothing.  At  Clark  there  would  be  gloom  and 
stagnation,  the  heavy  brooding  of  a  storm  that  has 
burst  but  not  moved  on,  a  continued  anger  on  his 
mother's  side,  naturally  increasing  with  her  inactivity, 
with  her  impotence.  He  was  gone,  and  she  could  say 
and  do  nothing  more  to  him.  In  a  quarrel,  thought 
Mr.  Twist,  the  morning  he  pushed  up  his  blinds  and 
saw  the  desert  at  sunrise,  an  exquisite  soft  thing  just 
being  touched  into  faint  colours, — in  a  quarrel  the  one 
who  goes  has  quite  unfairly  the  best  of  it.  Beautiful 
new  places  come  and  laugh  at  hun,  people  who  don't 
know  him  and  haven't  yet  judged  and  condemned  him 
are  ready  to  be  friendly.     He  must,  of  course,  go  far 

204 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS  205 

enough;  not  stay  near  at  hand  in  some  familiar  place 
and  be  so  lonely  that  he  ends  by  bemg  remorseful. 
Well,  he  was  gomg  far  enough.  Thanks  to  the  Annas 
he  was  going  about  as  far  as  he  could  go.  Certainly 
he  was  having  the  best  of  it  m  being  the  one  in  the 
quarrel  who  went;  and  he  was  shocked  to  find  himself 
cynically  thmkmg,  on  top  of  that,  that  one  should 
always,  then,  take  care  to  be  the  one  who  did  go.  ^ 

But  the  desert  has  a  peculiarly  exhilaratmg  air.  It 
came  in  everywhere,  and  seemed  to  tickle  him  out  of 
the  uneasy  mood  proper  to  one  who  has  been  cutting 
himself  off  for  good  and  all  from  his  early  home.  For 
the  life  of  hun  he  couldn't  help  feeling  extraordinarily 
light  and  free.  Edith— yes,  there  was  Edith,  but  some 
day  he  would  make  up  to  Edith  for  everythmg.  There 
was  no  helping  her  now:  she  was  fast  bound  m  misery 
and  iron,  and  didn't  even  seem  to  know  it.  So  would 
he  have  been,  he  supposed,  if  he  had  never  left  home  at 
all.  As  it  was,  it  was  bound  to  come,  this  upheaval. 
Just  the  mere  fact  of  inevitable  growth  would  have 
burst  the  bands  sooner  or  later.  There  oughtn't,  of 
course,  to  have  been  any  bands;  or,  there  being  bands, 
he  ought  long  ago  to  have  burst  them. 

He  pulled  his  kind  slack  mouth  firmly  together  and 
looked  determined.  Long  ago,  repeated  Mr.  Twist, 
shaking  his  head  at  his  own  weak  past.  Well,  it  was 
done  at  last,  and  never  again— never,  never  again,  he 
said  to  himself,  sniffing  in  through  his  open  wmdow 
the  cold  air  of  the  desert  at  sunrise. 

By  that  route,  the  Santa  Fe,  it  is  not  till  two  or  three 
hours  before  you  get  to  the  end  of  the  journey  that 
summer  meets  you.  It  is  waitmg  for  you  at  a  place 
called  San  Bernardmo.  There  is  no  trace  of  it  before. 
Up  to  then  you  are  still  in  October;  and  then  you  get  to 


206         CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

the  top  of  the  pass,  and  with  a  burst  it  is  June, — bril- 
Hant,   windless,   orange-scented. 

The  twins  and  Mr.  Twist  were  in  the  restaurant-car 
hinching  when  the  miracle  happened.  Suddenly  the 
door  opened  and  in  came  summer,  with  a  great  warm 
breath  of  roses.  In  a  moment  the  car  was  invaded 
by  the  scent  of  flowers  and  fruit  and  of  something  else 
strange  and  new  and  very  aromatic.  The  electric  fans 
were  set  twirling,  the  black  waiters  began  to  perspire, 
the  passengers  called  for  cold  things  to  eat,  and  the 
twins  pulled  off  their  knitted  caps  and  jerseys. 

From  that  point  on  to  the  end  of  the  line  in  Los 
Angeles  the  twins  could  only  conclude  they  were  in 
heaven.  It  was  the  light  that  did  it,  the  extraordinary 
glow  of  radiance.  Of  course  there  were  orchards  after 
orchards  of  orange  trees  covered  with  fruit,  white 
houses  smothered  in  flowers,  gardens  overrun  with 
roses,  tall  groups  of  eucalyptus  trees  giving  an  impres- 
sion of  elegant  nakedness,  long  lines  of  pepper  trees  with 
frail  fern-like  branches,  and  these  things  continued  for 
the  rest  of  the  way;  but  they  would  have  been  as  noth- 
ing without  that  beautiful,  great  bland  light.  The 
twins  had  had  their  hot  summers  in  Pomerania,  and 
their  July  days  in  England,  but  had  not  yet  seen  any- 
thing like  this.  Here  was  summer  without  sultriness, 
without  gnats,  mosquitoes,  threatening  thunderstorms, 
or  anything  to  spoil  it;  it  was  summer  as  it  might  be  in 
the  Elysian  fields,  perfectly  clear,  and  calm,  and  ra- 
diant. When  the  train  stopped  they  could  see  how  not 
a  breath  of  wind  stirred  the  dust  on  the  quiet  white 
roads,  and  the  leaves  of  the  magnolia  trees  glistened 
motionless  in  the  sun.  The  train  went  slowly  and 
stopped  often,  for  there  seemed  to  be  one  long  succession 
of  gardens  and  villages.     After  the  empty,  wind-driven 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       207 

plains  they  had  come  through,  those  vast  cold  expanses 
without  a  house  or  living  creature  in  sight,  what  a 
laughing  plenty,  what  a  gracious  fruitfulness,  was  here. 
And  when  they  went  back  to  their  compartment  it  too 
was  full  of  summer  smells, — the  smell  of  fruit,  and  roses, 
and  honey.  j 

For  the  first  time  since  the  war  began  and  with  it 
their  wanderings,  the  twins  felt  completely  happy. 
It  was  as  though  the  loveliness  wrapped  them  round 
and  they  stretched  themselves  in  it  and  forgot.  No 
fear  of  the  future,  no  doubt  of  it  at  all,  they  thought, 
gazing  out  of  the  window,  the  soft  air  patting  their 
faces,  could  possibly  bother  them  here.  They  never, 
for  instance,  could  be  cold  here,  or  go  hungry.  A  great 
confidence  in  life  invaded  them.  The  Delloggs,  sun- 
soaked  and  orange-fed  for  years  in  this  place,  couldn't 
but  be  gentle  too,  and  kmd  and  calm.  Impossible 
not  to  get  a  sort  of  refulgence  oneself,  they  thought, 
living  here,  and  absorb  it  and  give  it  out  again.  They 
pictured  the  Delloggs  as  bland  pillars  of  light  coming 
forward  effulgently  to  greet  them,  and  bathing  them 
in  the  beams  of  their  hospitality.  And  the  feeling  of 
responsibility  and  anxiety  that  had  never  left  Anna- 
Rose  since  she  last  saw  Aunt  Alice  dropped  off  her  in 
this  place,  and  she  felt  that  sim  and  oranges,  backed 
by  £200  in  the  bank,  would  be  difficult  things  for 
misfortune  to  get  at. 

As  for  Mr.  Twist,  he  was  even  more  entranced  than 
the  twins  as  he  gazed  out  of  the  window,  for  being  older 
he  had  had  time  to  see  more  ugly  things,  had  got  more 
used  to  them  and  to  taking  them  as  principally  making 
up  life.  He  stared  at  what  he  saw,  and  thought  with 
wonder  of  his  mother's  drawing-room  at  Clark,  of  its 
gloomy,   velvet-upholstered   discomforts,   of   the  cold 


208        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

mist  creeping  round  the  house,  and  of  that  last  scene 
in  it,  with  her  black  figure  in  the  middle  of  it,  tall  and 
thin  and  shaking  with  bitterness.  He  had  certainly 
been  in  that  drawing-room  and  heard  her  so  terribly 
denouncing  him,  but  it  was  very  difficult  to  believe;  it 
seemed  so  exactly  like  a  nightmare,  and  this  the  happy 
normal  waking  up  in  the  morning. 

They  all  three  were  in  the  highest  spirits  when  they 
got  out  at  Los  Angeles  and  drove  across  to  the  Southern 
Pacific  station — the  name  alone  made  their  hearts 
leap — to  catch  the  afternoon  train  on  to  where  the 
Delloggs  lived,  and  their  spirits  were  the  kind  one  can 
imagine  in  released  souls  on  their  first  arriving  in 
paradise, — high,  yet  subdued;  happy,  but  reverential; 
a  sort  of  rollicking  awe.  They  were  subdued,  in  fact, 
by  beauty.  And  the  journey  along  the  edge  of  the 
Pacific  to  Acapulco,  where  the  Delloggs  lived,  en- 
couraged and  developed  this  kind  of  spirits,  for  the 
sun  began  to  set,  and,  as  the  train  ran  for  miles  close 
to  the  water  with  nothing  but  a  strip  of  sand  between 
it  and  the  surf,  they  saw  their  first  Pacific  sunset. 
It  happened  to  be  even  in  that  land  of  wonderful  sun- 
sets an  unusually  wonderful  one,  and  none  of  the  three 
had  ever  seen  anything  in  the  least  like  it.  They 
could  but  sit  silent  and  stare.  The  great  sea,  that 
little  line  of  lovely  islands  flung  down  on  it  like  a  chain 
of  amethysts,  that  vast  flame  of  sky,  that  heaving 
water  passionately  reflecting  it,  and  on  the  other  side, 
through  the  other  windows,  a  sharp  wall  of  black 
mountains, — it  was  fantastically  beautiful,  like  some- 
thing in  a  poem  or  a  dream. 

By  the  time  they  got  to  Acapulco  it  was  dark. 
Night  followed  upon  the  sunset  with  a  suddenness 
that  astonished  the  twins,  used  to  the  leisurely  methods 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        209 

of  twilight  on  the  Baltic;  and  the  only  light  in  the 
country  outside  the  town  as  they  got  near  it  was  the 
light  from  myriads  of  great  stars. 

No  Delloggs  were  at  the  station,  but  the  twins  were 
used  now  to  not  being  met  and  had  not  particularly 
expected  them;  besides,  Mr.  Twist  was  with  them  this 
time,  and  he  would  see  that  if  the  Delloggs  didn't 
come  to  them  they  would  get  safely  to  the  Delloggs. 

The  usual  telegram  had  been  sent  announcing  their 
arrival,  and  the  taxi-driver,  who  seemed  to  know  the 
Dellogg  house  well  when  Mr.  Twist  told  him  where  they 
wanted  to  go,  apparently  also  thought  it  natural  they 
should  want  to  go  exactly  there.  In  him,  indeed,  there 
did  seem  to  be  a  trace  of  expecting  them, — almost  as  if 
he  had  been  told  to  look  out  for  them;  for  hardly  had 
Mr.  Twist  begun  to  give  him  the  address  than  glancing 
at  the  twins  he  said,  "I  guess  you're  wanting  Mrs. 
Dellogg";  and  got  down  and  actually  opened  the  door 
for  them,  an  attention  so  unusual  m  the  taxi-drivers 
the  twins  had  up  to  then  met  in  America  that  they 
were  more  than  ever  convinced  that  nothmg  m  the 
way  of  unfriendliness  or  unkindness  could  stand  up 
against  sun  and  oranges. 

"Relations?"  he  asked  them  through  the  window 
as  he  shut  the  door  gently  and  carefully,  while  Mr. 
Twist  went  with  a  porter  to  see  about  the  luggage. 

"I  beg  your  pardon?"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Relations  of  Delloggses?" 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose.     "Friends." 

"At  least,"  amended  Anna-Felicitas,  "practically." 

"Ah,"  said  the  driver,  leaning  with  both  his  arms 
on  the  window-sill  in  the  friendliest  possible  manner, 
and  chewing  gum  and  eyeing  them  with  thoughtful 
interest. 


210        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Then  he  said,  after  a  pause  durmg  which  his  jaw 
rolled  regularly  from  side  to  side  and  the  twms  watched 
the  rolling  with  an  interest  equal  to  his  interest  in  them, 
"From  Los  Angeles?"  ; 

"No,"  said  Anna-Rose.     "From  New  York." 

"At  least,"  amended  Anna-Felicitas,  "practically." 

"Well  I  call  that  a  real  compliment,"  said  the  driver 
slowly  and  dehberately  because  of  his  jaw  going  on 
rolling.  "To  come  all  that  way,  and  without  being 
relations — I  call  that  a  real  compliment,  and  a  friend- 
ship that's  worth  something.  Anybody  can  come 
along  from  Los  Angeles,  but  it  takes  a  real  friend  to 
come  from  New  York,"  and  he  eyed  them  now  with 
admiration. 

The  twins  for  their  part  eyed  him.  Not  only  did 
his  rolling  jaws  fascinate  them,  but  the  things  he  was 
saying  seemed  to  them  quaint. 

"But  we  wanted  to  come,"  said  Anna-Rose,  after  a 
pause. 

"Of  course.     Does  you  credit,"  said  the  driver. 

The  twins  thought  this  over. 

The  bright  station  lights  shone  on  their  faces,  which 
stood  out  very  white  in  the  black  setting  of  their  best 
mourning.  Before  getting  to  Los  Angeles  they  had 
dressed  themselves  carefully  in  what  Anna-Felicitas 
called  their  favourable-impression-on-arrival  garments, 
■ — those  garments  Aunt  Alice  had  bought  for  them  on 
their  mother's  death,  expressing  the  wave  of  sympathy 
in  which  she  found  herself  momentarily  engulfed  by 
going  to  a  very  good  and  expensive  dressmaker;  and 
in  the  black  perfection  of  these  clothes  the  twins  looked 
like  two  well-got-up  and  very  attractive  young 
crows.  These  were  the  clothes  they  had  put  on  on 
leaving  the  ship,  and  had  been  so  obviously  admired  in, 


CHRISTOPHER  AND^COLUMBUS        211 

to  the  uneasiness  of  Mr.  Twist,  by  the  public;  it  was  in 
these  clothes  that  they  had  arrived  within  range  of 
Mr.  Sack's  distracted  but  still  appreciative  vision,  and 
in  them  that  they  later  roused  the  suspicions  and  dis- 
like of  Mrs.  Twist.  It  was  in  these  clothes  that  they 
were  now  about  to  start  what  they  hoped  would  be  a 
lasting  friendship  with  the  Delloggs,  and  remembering 
they  had  them  on  they  decided  that  perhaps  it  wasn't 
only  sun  and  oranges  making  the  taxi-driver  so  atten- 
tive, but  also  the  effect  on  him  of  their  grown-up  and 
awe-inspiring  hats. 

This  was  confirmed  by  what  he  said  next.  "I  guess 
you're  old  friends,  then,"  he  remarked,  after  a  period  of 
reflective  jaw-rolling.  "Must  be,  to  come  all  that 
way." 

"Well — ^not  exactly,"  said  Anna-Rose,  divided  be- 
tween her  respect  for  truth  and  her  gratification  at 
being  thought  old  enough  to  be  somebody's  old  friend. 

"You  see,"  explained  Anna-Felicitas,  who  was 
never  divided  in  her  respect  for  truth,  "we're  not 
particularly  old  anything." 

The  driver  in  his  turn  thought  this  over,  and  finding 
he  had  no  observations  he  wished  to  make  on  it  he  let  it 
pass,  and  said,  "You'll  miss  Mr.  Dellogg." 

"Oh.?"  said  Anna-Rose,  pricking  up  her  ears,  "Shall 
we.f' 

"We  don't  mind  missing  Mr.  Dellogg,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas.     "It's   ]\irs.   Dellogg   we   wouldn't   like   to 


•  5> 

miss. 


The  driver  looked  puzzled. 

"Yes — that  would  be  too  awful,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
who  didn't  want  a  repetition  of  the  Sack  dilemma. 
"You  did  say,"  she  asked  anxiously,  "didn't  you, 
that  we  were  going  to  miss  Mr.  Dellogg?" 


212        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

The  driver,  looking  first  at  one  of  them  and  then  at 
the  other,  said,  "Well,  and  who  wouldn't?" 

And  this  answer  seemed  so  odd  to  the  twins  that  they 
could  only  as  they  stared  at  him  suppose  it  was  some 
recondite  form  of  American  slang,  provided  with  its 
own  particular  repartee  which,  being  unacquainted  with 
the  language,  they  Were  not  in  a  position  to  supply. 
Perhaps,  they  thought,  it  was  of  the  same  order  of 
mysterious  idioms  as  in  England  such  sentences  as  I  don't 
think,  and  Not  half, — forms  of  speech  whose  exact  mean- 
ing and  proper  use  had  never  been  mastered  by  them. 

"There  won't  be  another  like  Mr.  Dellogg  in  these 
parts  for  many  a  year,"  said  the  driver,  shaking  his 
head.     "Ah  no.     And  that's  so." 

"Isn't  he  coming  back.f^"  asked  Anna-Rose. 

The  driver's  jaws  ceased  for  a  moment  to  roll.  He 
stared  at  Anna-Rose  with  unblinking  eyes.  Then  he 
turned  his  head  away  and  spat  along  the  station,  and 
then,  again  fixing  his  eyes  on  Anna-Rose,  he  said, 
"Young  gurl,  you  may  be  a  spiritualist,  and  a  table- 
turner,  and  a  psychic-rummager,  and  a  ghost-fancier, 
and  anything  else  you  please,  and  get  what  comfort  you 
can  out  of  your  coming  backs  and  the  rest  of  the  blessed 
truck,  but  I  know  better.  And  what  I  know,  being  a 
Christian,  is  that  once  a  man's  dead  he's  either  in  heaven 
or  he's  in  hell,  and  whichever  it  is  he's  in,  in  it  he  stops." 

Anna-Felicitas  was  the  first  to  speak.     "Are  we  to 

understand,"  she  inquired,  "that    Mr.  Dellogg " 

She  broke  off. 

"That  Mr.  Dellogg  is "  Anna-Rose  continued  for 

her,  but  broke  off  too. 

"That  Mr.  Dellogg  isn't — "  resumed  Anna-Felicitas 
with  determination,  "well,  that  he  isn't  alive?" 

"Alive?"   repeated   the   driver.     He   let   his   hand 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        213 

drop  heavily  on  the  window-sill.  "If  that  "don't 
beat  all,"  he  said,  staring  at  her.  "What  do  you  come 
to  his  funeral  for,  then?" 

"His  funeral?" 

"Yes,  if  you  don't  know  that  he  ain't?" 

"Ain't— isn't  what?" 

"Alive,  of  course.  No,  I  mean  dead.  You're  get- 
ting me  all  tangled  up." 

"But  we  haven't." 

"But  we  didn't." 

"We  had  a  letter  from  him  only  last  month." 

"At  least,  an  uncle  we've  got  had." 

"And  he  didn't  say  a  word  in  it  about  being  dead — I 
mean,  there  was  no  sign  of  his  being  going  to  be — I 
mean,  he  wasn't  a  bit  ill  or  anything  in  his  letter " 

"Now  see  here,"  interrupted  the  driver,  sarcasm  in 
his  voice,  "it  ain't  exactly  usual  is  it — I  put  it  to  you 
squarely,  and  say  it  ain't  exactly  usual  (there  may  be 
exceptions,  but  it  ain't  exactly  usual)  to  come  to  a 
gentleman's  funeral,  and  especially  not  all  the  way 
from  New  York,  without  some  sort  of  an  idea  that  he's 
dead.  Some  sort  of  a  general  idea,  anyhow,"  he  added 
still  more  sarcastically;  for  his  admiration  for  the  twins 
had  given  way  to  doubt  and  discomfort,  and  a  sus- 
picion was  growing  on  him  that  with  incredible  and 
horrible  levity,  seeing  what  the  moment  was  and  what 
the  occasion,  they  were  filling  up  the  time  waiting  for 
their  baggage,  among  which  were  no  doubt  funeral 
wreaths,  by  making  game  of  him. 

"Gurls  like  you  shouldn't  behave  that  way,"  he 
went  on,  his  voice  aggrieved  as  he  remembered  how 
sympathetically  he  had  got  down  from  his  seat  when 
he  saw  their  mourning  clothes  and  tired  white  faces 
and  helped  them  into  his  taxi, — only  for  genuine  mourn- 


214        CHRISTOPIIER  AND  COLUMBUS 

ers,  real  sorry  ones,  going  to  pay  their  last  respects  to 
a  gentleman  like  Mr.  Dellogg,  would  he,  a  free  American 
have  done  that.  "Nicely  dressed  gurls,  well-cared- 
for  gurls.  Daughters  of  decent  people.  Here  you 
come  all  tliis  way,  I  guess  sent  by  your  parents  to 
represent  them  properly,  and  properly  fitted  out  in 
nice  black  clothes  and  all,  and  you  start  making  fun. 
Pretending.  Playing  kind  of  hide-and-seek  with  me 
about  the  funeral.  Messing  me  up  in  a  lot  of  words. 
I  don't  like  it.  I'm  a  father  myself,  and  I  don't  like  it. 
I  don't  like  to  see  daughters  going  on  like  this  when 
their  father  ain't  looking.  It  don't  seem  decent  to  me. 
But  I  suppose  you  Easterners " 

The  twins,  however,  were  not  listening.  They  were 
looking  at  each  other  in  dismay.  How  extraordinary, 
how  terrible,  the  way  Uncle  Arthur's  friends  gave  out. 
They  seemed  to  melt  away  at  one's  mere  approach. 
People  who  had  been  living  with  their  husbands  all 
their  hves  ran  away  just  as  the  twins  came  on  the  scene; 
people  who  had  been  alive  all  their  lives  went  and  died, 
also  at  that  very  moment.  It  almost  seemed  as  if 
directly  anybody  knew  that  they,  the  Twinklers,  were 
coming  to  stay  with  them  they  became  bent  on  escape. 
They  could  only  look  at  each  other  in  stricken  aston- 
ishment at  this  latest  blow  of  Fate.  They  heard  no 
more  of  what  the  driver  said.  They  could  only  sit 
and  look  at  each  other. 

And  then  Mr.  Twist  came  hurrying  across  from  the 
baggage  office,  wiping  his  forehead,  for  the  night  was 
hot.  Behind  him  came  the  porter,  ruefully  balancing 
the  piled-up  grips  on  his  truck. 

"I'm  sorry  to  have  been  so "  began  Mr.  Twist, 

smiling  cheerfully :  but  he  stopped  short  in  his  sentence 
and  left  off  smiling  when  he  saw  the  expression  in  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS         215 

four  eyes  fixed  on  him.  "What  has  happened?"  he 
asked  quickly. 

"Only  what  we  might  have  expected,"  said  Anna- 
Rose. 

"Mr.  Dellogg's  dead,"  said  Anna-FeHcitas. 

"You  don't  say,"  said  Mr.  Twist;  and  after  a  pause 
he  said  again,  "You  don't  say." 

Then  he  recovered  himself.  "I'm  very  sorry  to  hear 
it,  of  course,"  he  said  briskly,  picking  himself  up,  as 
it  were,  from  this  sudden  and  unexpected  tumble, 
"but  I  don't  see  that  it  matters  to  you  so  long  as  Mrs. 
Dellogg  isn't  dead  too." 

"Yes,  but "  began  Anna-Rose. 

"Mr.  Dellogg  isn't  very  dead,  you  see,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

Mr.  Twist  looked  from  them  to  the  driver,  but  find- 
ing no  elucidation  there  and  only  disapproval,  looked 
back  again. 

"He  isn't  dead  and  settled  down,''  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Not  that  sort  of  being  dead,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"He's  just  dead." 

"Just  got  to  the  stage  when  he  has  a  funeral,"  said 
Anna-Rose. 

"His  funeral,  it  seems,  is  imminent,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas.  "Did  you  not  give  us  to  understand,"  she 
asked,  turning  to  the  driver,  "that  it  was  imminent?" 

"I  don't  know  about  imminent,"  said  the  driver, 
who  wasn't  going  to  waste  valuable  time  with  words 
like  that,  "but  it's  to-morrow." 

"And  you  see  what  that  means  for  us,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  turning  to  Mr.  Twist. 

Mr.  Twist  did. 

He  again  wiped  his  forehead,  but  not  this  time  be- 
cause the  night  was  hot. 


CHAPTER  XX 

MANIFESTLY  it  is  impossible  to  thrust  oneself 
into  a  house  where  there  is  going  to  be  a  funeral 
next  day,  even  if  one  has  come  all  the  way  from 
New  York  and  has  nowhere  else  to  go.  Equally  mani- 
festly it  is  impossible  to  thrust  oneseK  into  it  after  the 
funeral  till  a  decent  interval  has  elapsed.  But  what 
the  devil,  Mr.  Twist  asked  himself  in  language  become 
regrettably  natural  to  him  since  his  sojourn  at  the 
front,  is  a  decent  interval? 

This  Mr.  Twist  asked  himself  late  that  night,  pacing 
up  and  down  the  sea-shore  in  the  warm  and  tranquil 
darkness  in  front  of  the  Cosmopolitan  Hotel,  while 
the  twins,  utterly  tired  out  by  their  journey  and  the 
emotions  at  the  end  of  it,  crept  silently  into  bed. 

How  long  does  it  take  a  widow  to  recover  her  com- 
posure? Recover,  that  is,  the  first  beginnings  of  it? 
At  what  stage  in  her  mourning  is  it  legitimate  to  intrude 
on  her  with  reminders  of  obligations  incurred  before 
she  was  a  widow, — with,  in  fact,  the  Twinklers?  Deli- 
cacy itseK  would  shrink  from  doing  it  under  a  week, 
thought  Mr.  Twist,  or  even  under  a  fortnight,  or  even, 
if  you  came  to  that,  under  a  month;  and  meanwhile 
what  was  he  to  do  with  the  Twinklers? 

Mr.  Twist,  being  of  the  artistic  temperament — 
for  otherwise  he  wouldn't  have  been  so  sympathetic, 
nor  would  he  have  minded,  as  he  so  passionately  did 
mind,  his  Uncle  Charles's  teapot  dribbling  on  to  the 
tablecloth — was  sometimes  swept  by  brief  but  tem- 

216 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        217 

pestuous  revulsions  of  feeling,  and  though  he  loved  the 
Twinklers  he  did  at  this  moment  describe  them  mentally 
and  without  knowing  it  in  the  very  words  of  Uncle 
Arthur,  as  those  accursed  twins.  It  was  quite  imjust, 
he  knew.  They  couldn't  help  the  death  of  the  man 
Dellogg.  They  were  the  victims,  from  first  to  last, 
of  a  cruel  and  pursuing  fate;  but  it  is  natural  to  turn 
on  victims,  and  Mr.  Twist  was  for  an  instant,  out  of 
the  very  depth  of  his  helpless  sympathy,  impatient 
with  the  Twinklers. 

He  walked  up  and  down  the  sands  frowning  and 
pulling  his  mouth  together,  w^hile  the  Pacific  sighed 
sympathetically  at  his  feet.  Across  the  road  the  huge 
hotel  standing  in  its  gardens  was  pierced  by  a  thousand 
lights.  Very  few  people  were  about  and  no  one  at  all 
was  on  the  sands.  There  was  an  immense  noise  of 
what  sounded  like  grasshoppers  or  crickets,  and  also  at 
intervals  distant  choruses  of  frogs,  but  these  sounds 
seemed  altogether  beneficent, — so  warm,  and  southern, 
and  far  away  from  less  happy  places  where  in  October 
cold  winds  perpetually  torment  the  world.  Even  in 
the  dark  Mr.  Twist  knew  he  had  got  to  somewhere 
that  was  beautiful.  He  could  imagine  nothing  more 
agreeable  than,  having  handed  over  the  twins  safely 
to  the  Delloggs,  staying  on  a  week  or  two  in  this  place 
and  seeing  them  every  day, — perhaps  even,  as  he  had 
pictured  to  himself  on  the  journey,  being  invited  to 
stay  with  the  Delloggs.  Now  all  that  was  knocked  on 
the  head.  He  supposed  the  man  Dellogg  couldn't  help 
being  dead  but  he,  Mr.  Twist,  equally  couldn't  help 
resenting  it.  It  was  so  awkward;  so  exceedingly 
awkward.  And  it  was  so  like  what  one  of  that  creature 
Uncle  Arthur's  friends  would  do. 

Mr.  Twist,  it  will  be  seen,  was  frankly  unreasonable, 


218        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

but  then  he  was  very  much  taken  aback  and  annoyed. 
What  was  he  to  do  with  the  Annas?  He  was  obviously 
not  a  relation  of  theirs — and  indeed  no  profiles  could 
have  been  less  alike — and  he  didn't  suppose  Acapulco 
was  behind  other  parts  of  America  in  curiosity  and 
gossip.  If  he  stayed  on  at  the  Cosmopolitan  with  the 
twins  till  Mrs.  Dellogg  was  approachable  again,  when- 
ever that  might  be,  every  sort  of  question  would  be 
being  asked  in  whispers  about  who  they  were  and  what 
was  their  relationship,  and  presently  whenever  they 
sat  down  anywhere  the  chairs  all  round  them  would 
empty.  Mr.  Twist  had  seen  the  kind  of  thing  happen- 
ing in  hotels  before  to  other  people, — ^never  to  himself ; 
never  had  he  been  in  any  situation  till  now  that  was  not 
luminously  regular.  And  quite  soon  after  this  with 
the  chairs  had  begun  to  happen,  the  people  who  created 
these  vacancies  were  told  by  the  manager — ^firmly  in 
America,  poHtely  in  England,  and  sympathetically  in 
France — that  their  rooms  had  been  engaged  a  long  time 
ago  for  the  very  next  day,  and  no  others  were  available. 
The  Cosmopolitan  was  clearly  an  hotel  frequented 
by  the  virtuous  rich.  Mr.  Twist  felt  that  he  and  the 
Annas  wouldn't,  in  their  eyes,  come  under  this  heading: 
not,  that  is,  when  the  other  guests  became  aware  of 
the  entire  absence  of  any  relationship  between  him 
and  the  twins.  Well,  for  a  day  or  two  nothing  could 
happen;  for  a  day  or  two,  before  his  party  had  had  time 
to  sink  into  the  hotel  consciousness  and  the  manager 
appeared  to  tell  him  the  rooms  were  engaged,  he  could 
think  things  out  and  talk  them  over  with  his  compan- 
ions. Perhaps  he  might  even  see  Mrs.  Dellogg.  The 
funeral,  he  had  heard  on  inquiring  of  the  hall  porter, 
was  next  day.  It  was  to  be  a  brilliant  affair,  said  the 
porter.     Mr.  Dellogg  had  been  a  prominent  inhabitant. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        219 

free  with  his  money,  a  supporter  of  anything  there  was 
to  support.  The  porter  talked  of  him  as  the  taxi- 
driver  had  done,  regretfully  and  respectfully;  and  Mr. 
Twist  went  to  bed  angrier  than  ever  with  a  man  who, 
being  so  valuable  and  so  necessary,  should  have  neg- 
lected at  such  a  moment  to  go  on  living. 

Mr.  Twist  didn't  sleep  very  well  that  night.  He 
lay  in  his  rosy  room,  under  a  pink  silk  quilt,  and  most 
of  the  time  stared  out  through  the  open  French  win- 
dows with  their  pink  brocade  curtains  at  the  great 
starry  night,  thinking. 

In  that  soft  bed,  so  rosy  and  so  silken  as  to  have  been 
worthy  of  the  relaxations  of,  at  least,  a  prima  donna, 
he  looked  like  some  lean  and  alien  bird  nesting  tem- 
porarily where  he  had  no  business  to.  He  hadn't 
thought  of  buying  silk  pyjamas  when  the  success  of  his 
teapot  put  him  in  the  right  position  for  doing  so,  be- 
cause his  soul  was  too  simple  for  him  to  desire  or  think 
of  anything  less  candid  to  wear  in  bed  than  flannel, 
and  he  still  wore  the  blue  flannel  pyjamas  of  a  careful 
bringing  up.  In  that  beautiful  bed  his  pyjamas  didn't 
seem  appropriate.  Also  his  head,  so  frugal  of  hair, 
didn't  do  justice  to  the  lace  and  linen  of  a  pillow  pre- 
pared for  the  hairier  head  of,  again  at  least,  a  prima 
donna.  And  finding  he  couldn't  sleep,  and  wishing  to 
see  the  stars  he  put  on  his  spectacles,  and  then  looked 
more  out  of  place  than  ever.  But  as  nobody  was  there 
to  see  him, — which,  Mr.  Twist  sometimes  thought 
when  he  caught  sight  of  himself  in  his  pyjamas  at  bed- 
time, is  one  of  the  comforts  of  being  virtuously  im- 
married, — nobody  minded. 

His  reflections  were  many  and  various,  and  they  con- 
flicted with  and  contradicted  each  other  as  the  reflec- 
tions of  persons  in  a  difficult  position  who  have  Mr. 


220        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Twist's  sort  of  temperament  often  do.  Faced  by  a 
dribbling  teapot,  an  object  which  touched  none  of  the 
softer  emotions,  Mr.  Twist  soared  undisturbed  in  the 
calm  heights  of  a  detached  and  concentrated  intelli- 
gence, and  quickly  knew  what  to  do  with  it;  faced  by 
the  derelict  Annas  his  heart  and  his  tenderness  got  in 
the  ways  of  any  clear  vision. 

About  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  his  mind 
was  choked  and  strewn  with  much  pulled-about  and 
finally  discarded  plans,  he  suddenly  had  an  idea.  A 
real  one.  As  far  as  he  could  see,  a  real  good  one.  He 
would  place  the  Annas  in  a  school. 

Why  shouldn't  they  go  to  school .^^  he  asked  himself, 
starting  off  answering  any  possible  objections.  A  year 
at  a  first-rate  school  would  give  them  and  everybody 
else  time  to  consider.  They  ought  never  to  have  left 
school.  It  was  the  very  place  for  luxuriant  and  over- 
flowing natures  lil^e  theirs.  No  doubt  Acapulco  had 
such  a  thing  as  a  finishing  school  for  young  ladies  in  it, 
and  into  it  the  Annas  should  go,  and  once  in  it  there 
they  should  stay  put,  thought  Mr.  Twist  in  vigorous 
American,  gathering  up  his  mouth  defiantly. 

Down  these  lines  of  thought  his  relieved  mind 
cantered  easily.  He  would  seek  out  a  lawyer  the  next 
morning,  regularize  his  position  to  the  twins  by  turning 
himself  into  their  guardian,  and  then  get  them  at  once 
into  the  best  school  there  was.  As  their  guardian 
he  could  then  pay  all  their  expenses,  and  faced 
by  this  legal  fact  they  would,  he  hoped,  be  soon  per- 
suaded of  the  propriety  of  his  paying  whatever  there 
was  to  pay. 

Mr.  Twist  was  so  much  pleased  by  his  idea  that  he 
was  able  to  go  to  sleep  after  that.  Even  three  months' 
school — the  period  he  gave  Mrs.  Dellogg  for  her  acutest 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        221 

grief — would  do.  Tide  them  over.  Give  them  room 
to  turn  round  in.  It  was  a  great  solution.  He  took 
off  his  spectacles,  snuggled  down  into  his  rosy  nest,  and 
fell  asleep  with  the  instantaneousness  of  one  whose  mind 
is  suddenly  relieved. 

But  when  he  went  down  to  brealvfast  he  didn't  feel 
quite  so  sure.  The  twins  didn't  look,  somehovv^,  as 
though  they  would  want  to  go  to  school.  They  had 
been  busy  with  their  luggage,  and  had  unpacked  one 
of  the  trunks  for  the  first  time  since  leaving  Aunt  Alice, 
and  in  honour  of  the  heat  and  sunshine  and  the  heavenly 
smell  of  heliotrope  that  was  in  the  warm  air,  had  put 
on  white  summer  frocks. 

Impossible  to  imagine  anything  cooler,  sweeter, 
prettier  and  more  angelically  good  than  those  two 
Annas  looked  as  they  came  out  on  to  the  great  ver- 
andah of  the  hotel  to  join  Mr.  Twist  at  breakfast. 
They  instantly  sank  into  the  hotel  consciousness. 
Mr.  Twist  had  thought  this  wouldn't  happen  for  a  day 
or  two,  but  he  now  perceived  his  mistake.  Not  a 
head  that  wasn't  turned  to  look  at  them,  not  a  news- 
paper that  wasn't  lowered.  They  were  immediate 
objects  of  interest  and  curiosity,  entirely  benevolent 
interest  and  curiosity  because  nobody  yet  knew  any- 
thing about  them,  and  the  wives  of  the  rich  husbands — 
those  halves  of  the  virtuous-rich  unions  which  pro- 
vided the  virtuousness — smiled  as  they  passed,  and 
murmured  nice  words  to  each  other  like  cute  and  cun- 
ning. 

Mr.  Twist,  being  a  good  American,  stood  up  and 
held  the  twins'  chairs  for  them  when  they  appeared. 
They  loved  this;  it  seemed  so  respectful,  and  made 
them  feel  so  old  and  looked-up  to.  He  had  done  it 
that  night  in  New  York  at  supper,  and  at  all  the 


222        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

meals  in  the  train  in  spite  of  the  train  being  so  wobbly, 
and  each  time  they  had  loved  it.  "It  makes  one 
have  such  seK-respect,"  they  agreed,  commenting  on 
this  agreeable  practice  in  private. 

They  sat  down  in  the  chairs  with  the  gracious  faces 
of  the  properly  treated,  and  inquired,  with  an  amiability 
and  a  solicitous  politeness  on  a  par  with  their  treatment, 
how  Mr.  Twist  had  slept.  They  themselves  had  obvi- 
ously slept  well,  for  their  faces  were  cherubic  in  their 
bland  placidity,  and  already  after  one  night  wore 
what  Mr.  Twist  later  came  to  recognize  as  the  Cali- 
fornian  look,  a  look  of  complete  unworriedness. 

Yet  they  ought  to  have  been  worried.  Mr.  Twist 
had  been  terribly  worried  up  to  the  moment  in  the 
night  when  he  got  his  great  idea,  and  he  was  worried 
again,  now  that  he  saw  the  twins,  by  doubts.  They 
didn't  look  as  though  they  would  easily  be  put  to  school. 
His  idea  still  seemed  to  him  magnificent,  a  great 
solution,  but  would  the  Annas  be  able  to  see  it?  They 
might  turn  out  impervious  to  it;  not  rejecting  it,  but 
simply  non-absorbent.  As  they  slowly  and  contentedly 
ate  their  grape-fruit,  gazing  out  between  the  spoonfuls 
at  the  sea  shining  across  the  road  through  palm  trees, 
and  looking  unruffled  itself,  he  felt  it  was  going  to  be 
rather  like  suggesting  to  two  cherubs  to  leave  their 
serene  occupation  of  adoring  eternal  beauty  and  learn 
lessons  instead.  Still,  it  was  the  one  way  out,  as  far  as 
Mr.  Twist  could  see,  of  the  situation  produced  by  the 
death  of  the  man  Dellogg.  "When  you've  done  break- 
fast," he  said,  pulling  himself  together  on  their  reach- 
ing the  waffle  stage,  "we  must  have  a  talk." 

"When  we've  done  breakfast,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "we 
must  have  a  walk." 

"Down  there,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  pointing  with 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        223 

her  spoon.  "On  the  sands.  Round  the  curve  to 
where  the  pink  hills  begin." 

"Mr.  Dellogg's  death,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  deciding  it 
was  necessary  at  once  to  wake  them  up  out  of  the  kind  of 
happy  somnolescence  they  seemed  to  be  falling  into, 
"has  of  course  completely  changed " 

"How  unfortunate,"  interrupted  Anna-Rose,  her 
eyes  on  the  palms  and  the  sea  and  the  exquisite  distant 
mountains  along  the  back  of  the  bay,  "to  have  to  be 
dead  on  a  day  like  this." 

"It's  not  only  his  missing  the  fine  weather  that 
makes  it  unfortunate,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"You  mean,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "it's  our  missing  him." 

"Precisely,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Well,  we  know  that,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  placidly. 

"We  knew  it  last  night,  and  it  worried  us,"  said 
Anna-Rose.  "Then  we  went  to  sleep  and  it  didn't 
worry  us.     And  this  morning  it  still  doesn't." 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Twist  dryly.  "You  don't  look 
particularly  worried,  I  must  say." 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "we're  not.  People 
who  find  they've  got  to  heaven  aren't  usually  worried, 
are  they." 

"And  having  got  to  heaven,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
"we've  thought  of  a  plan  to  enable  us  to  stay  in  it." 

"Oh  have  you,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  pricking  up  his  ears. 

"The  plan  seemed  to  think  of  us  rather  than  we  of 
it,"  explained  Anna-Felicitas.  "It  came  and  inserted 
itself,  as  it  were,  into  our  minds  while  we  were  dressing." 

"Well,  I've  thought  of  a  plan  too,"  said  Mr.  Twist 
firmly,  feeling  sure  that  the  ^twins'  plan  would  be  the 
sort  that  ought  to  be  instantly  nipped  in  the  bud. 

He  was  therefore  greatly  astonished  when  Anna- 
Rose  said,  "Have  you.^*     Is  it  about  schools?" 


224        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

He  stared  at  her  in  silence.  "Yes,"  he  then  said 
slowly,  for  he  was  very  much  surprised.     "It  is." 

"So  is  ours,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Indeed,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "We  don't  think  much 
of  it,  but  it  will  tide  us  over." 

"Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  still  more  astonished  at 
this  perfect  harmony  of  ideas. 

"Tide  us  over  till  Mrs.  Dellogg  is "  began  Anna- 
Rose  in  her  clear  little  voice  that  carried  like  a  flute  to 
all  the  tables  round  them. 

Mr.  Twist  got  up  quickly.  "If  you've  finished 
let  us  go  out  of  doors,"  he  said;  for  he  perceived  that 
silence  had  fallen  on  the  other  tables,  and  attentiveness 
to  what  Anna-Rose  was  going  to  say  next. 

"Yes.     On  the  sands,"  said  the  twins,  getting  up  too. 

On  the  sands,  however,  Mr.  Twist  soon  discovered 
that  the  harmony  of  ideas  was  not  as  complete  as  he 
had  supposed;  indeed,  something  very  like  heated 
argument  began  almost  as  soon  as  they  were  seated  on 
some  rocks  round  the  corner  of  the  shore  to  the  west  of 
the  hotel  and  they  became  aware,  through  conversa- 
tion, of  the  vital  difference  in  the  two  plans. 

The  Twinkler  plan,  which  they  expounded  at  much 
length  and  with  a  profusion  of  optimistic  detail,  was 
to  search  for  and  find  a  school  in  the  neighbourhood 
for  the  daughters  of  gentlemen,  and  go  to  it  for  three 
months,  or  six  months,  or  whatever  time  Mrs.  Dellogg 
wanted  to  recover  in. 

Up  to  this  point  the  harmony  was  complete,  and 
Mr.  Twist  could  only  nod  approval.  Beyond  it  all  was 
confusion,  for  it  appeared  that  the  twins  didn't  dream 
of  entering  a  school  in  any  capacity  except  as  teachers. 
Professors,  they  said;  professors  of  languages  and  lit- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        225 

eratures.  They  could  speak  German,  as  they  pointed 
out,  very  much  better  than  most  people,  and  had,  as 
Mr.  Twist  had  sometimes  himself  remarked,  an  exten- 
sive vocabulary  in  English.  They  would  give  lessons 
in  English  and  German  literature.  They  would  be 
able  to  teach  quite  a  lot  about  Heine,  for  instance, 
the  whole  of  whose  poetry  they  knew  by  heart  and 
whose  sad  life  in  Paris 

"It's  no  good  running  on  like  that,"  interrupted  Mr. 
Twist.     "You're  not  old  enough." 

Not  old  enough?  The  Twinklers,  from  their  sep- 
arate rocks,  looked  at  each  other  in  surprised  in- 
dignation. 

"Not  old  enough?"  repeated  Anna-Rose.  "We're 
grown  up.  And  I  don't  see  how  one  can  be  more  than 
grown  up.  One  either  is  or  isn't  grown  up.  And 
there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  which  we  are." 

And  this  the  very  man  who  so  respectfully  had  been 
holding  their  chairs  for  them  only  a  few  minutes  before ! 
As  if  people  did  things  like  that  for  children. 

"You're  not  old  enough  I  say,"  said  Mr.  Twist 
again,  bringing  his  hand  down  with  a  slap  on  the  rock 
to  emphasize  his  words.  "Nobody  would  take  you. 
Why,  you've  got  perambulator  faces,  the  pair  of 
you — -" 

"Perambulator ?" 

"And  what  school  is  going  to  want  two  teachers  both 
teaching  the  same  thing,  anyway?" 

And  he  then  quickly  got  out  his  plan,  and  the  conver- 
sation became  so  heated  that  for  a  time  it  was  molten. 

The  Twinklers  were  shocked  by  his  plan.  More; 
they  were  outraged.  Go  to  school?  To  a  place  they 
had  never  been  to  even  in  their  suitable  years?  They, 
two  independent  grown-ups  with  £200  in  the  bank  and 


226        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

nobody  with  any  right  to  stop  their  doing  anything  they 
wanted  to?  Go  to  school  now,  like  a  couple  of  little 
suck-a-thumbs  ? 

It  was  Anna-Rose,  very  flushed  and  bright  of  eye, 
who  flung  this  expression  at  Mr.  Twist  from  her  rock. 
He  might  think  they  had  perambulator  faces  if  he  liked 
— they  didn't  care,  but  they  did  desire  him  to  bear  in 
mind  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  war  they  would  be 
now  taking  their  proper  place  in  society,  that  they  had 
already  done  a  course  of  nursing  in  a  hospital,  an  activity 
not  open  to  any  but  adults,  and  that  Uncle  Arthur 
had  certainly  not  given  them  all  that  money  to  fritter 
away  on  paying  for  belated  schooling. 

"We  would  be  anachronisms,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
winding  up  the  discussion  with  a  firmness  so  unusual 
in  her  that  it  showed  how  completely  she  had  been 
stirred. 

"Are  you  aware  that  we  are  marriageable. f^"  inquired 
Anna-Rose  icily. 

"And  don't  you  think  it's  bad  enough  for  us  to  be 
aliens  and  undesirables,"  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  "with- 
out getting  chronologically  confused  as  well.^" 

Mr.  Twist  was  quiet  for  a  bit.  He  couldn't  compete 
with  the  Twinklers  when  it  came  to  sheer  language. 
He  sat  hunched  on  his  rock,  his  face  supported  by  his 
two  fists,  staring  out  to  sea  while  the  twins  watched 
him  indignantly.  School  indeed!  Then  presently  he 
pushed  his  hat  back  and  began  slowly  to  rub  his 
ear. 

"Well,  I'm  blest  if  I  know  what  to  do  with  you, 
then,"  he  said,  continuing  to  rub  his  ear  and  stare  out 
to  sea. 

The  twins  opened  their  mouths  simultaneously  at 
this  to  protest  against  any  necessity  for  such  knowledge 


<i 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        227 

on  his  part,  but  he  interrupted  them.  "If  you  don't 
mind,"  he  said,  "I'd  like  to  resume  this  discussion 
when  you're  both  a  Httle  more  composed." 

"We're  perfectly  composed,"  said  Anna-Fehcitas. 

"Less  ruffled,  then." 

"We're  quite  unruffled,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Well,  you  don't  look  it,  and  you  don't  sound  like 
it.  But  as  this  is  important  I'd  be  glad  to  resume  the 
discussion,  say,  to-morrow.  I  suggest  we  spend  to- 
day exploring  the  neighbourhood  and  steadying  our 

minds " 

Our  minds  are  perfectly  steady,  thank  you." 
■ — and  to-morrow  we'll  have  another  go  at  this 
question.  I  haven't  told  you  all  my  plan  yet" — ^Mr. 
Twist  hadn't  had  time  to  inform  them  of  his  wish  to 
become  their  guardian,  owing  to  the  swiftness  with 
which  he  had  been  engulfed  in  their  indignation, — 
"but  whether  you  approve  of  it  or  not,  what  is  quite 
certain  is  that  we  can't  stay  on  at  the  hotel  much 
longer." 

"Because  it's  so  dear.f^" 

"Oh,  it  isn't  so  much  that, — the  proprietor  is  a  friend 
of  mine,  or  anyhow  he  very  well  might  be " 

"It  looks  very  dear,"  said  Anna-Rose,  visions  of 
their  splendid  bedroom  and  bathroom  rising  before 
her.  They  too  had  slept  in  silken  beds,  and  the  taps 
in  their  bathroom  they  had  judged  to  be  pure  gold. 

"And  it's  because  we  can't  afford  to  be  in  a  dear 
place  spending  money,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "that  it's 
so  important  we  should  find  a  salaried  position  in  a 
school  without  loss  of  time." 

"And  it's  because  we  can't  afford  reckless  squander- 
ing that  we  ought  to  start  looking  for  such  a  situation 
at  once,"  said  Anna-Rose. 


228        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Not  to-day,"  said  Mr.  Twist  firmly,  for  he  wouldn't 
give  up  the  hope  of  getting  them,  once  they  were  used 
to  it,  to  come  round  to  his  plan.  "To-day,  this  one 
day,  we'll  give  ourselves  up  to  enjoyment.  It'll  do  us 
all  good.  Besides,  we  don't  often  get  to  a  place  like 
this,  do  we.  And  it  has  taken  some  getting  to,  hasn't 
it. 

He  rose  from  his  rock  and  offered  his  hand  to  help 
them  off  theirs. 

"To-day  enjoyment,"  he  said,  "to-morrow  business. 
I'm  crazy,"  he  added  artfully,  "to  see  what  the  country 
is  like  away  up  in  those  hills." 

And  so  it  was  that  about  five  o'clock  that  afternoon, 
having  spent  the  whole  day  exploring  the  charming 
environs  of  Acapulco, — having  been  seen  at  different 
periods  going  over  the  Old  Mission  in  tow  of  a  monk 
who  wouldn't  look  at  them  but  kept  his  eyes  carefully 
fixed  on  the  ground,  sitting  on  high  stools  eating  strange 
and  enchanting  ices  at  the  shop  in  the  town  that  has 
the  best  ices,  bathing  deliciously  in  the  warm  sea  at  the 
foot  of  a  cliff  along  the  top  of  which  a  great  hedge  of 
rose-coloured  geraniums  flared  against  the  sky,  lunch- 
ing under  a  grove  of  ilexes  on  the  contents  of  a  basket 
produced  by  Mr.  Twist  from  somewhere  in  the  car  he 
had  hired,  wandering  afterwards  up  through  euca- 
lyptus woods  across  the  fields  towards  the  foot  of  the 
mountains, — they  came  about  five  o'clock,  thirsty  and 
thinldng  of  tea,  to  a  delightful  group  of  flowery  cot- 
tages clustering  round  a  restaurant  and  forming  collec- 
tively, as  Mr.  Twist  explained,  one  of  the  many  Amer- 
ican forms  of  hotel.  "To  which,"  he  said,  "people 
not  living  in  the  cottages  can  come  and  have  meals  at 
the  restaurant,  so  we'll  go  right  in  and  have  tea." 

And  it  was  just  because  they  couldn't  get  tea — any 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        £29 

other  meal,  the  proprietress  said,  but  no  teas  were 
served,  owing  to  the  Domestic  Help  Eight  Hours  Bill 
which  obliged  her  to  do  without  domestics  during  the 
afternoon  hours — that  Anna-Felicitas  came  by  her 
great  idea. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

BUT  she  didn't  come  by  It  at  once. 
They  got  into  the  car  first,  which  was  waiting 
for  them  in  the  scented  road  at  the  bottom  of 
the  field  they  had  walked  across,  and  they  got  into  it 
in  silence  and  were  driven  back  to  their  hotel  for  tea, 
and  her  brain  was  still  unvisited  by  inspiration. 

They  were  all  tired  and  thirsty,  and  were  dis- 
appointed at  being  thwarted  in  their  desire  to  sit  at  a 
little  green  table  under  whispering  trees  and  rest,  and 
drink  tea,  and  had  no  sort  of  wish  to  have  it  at  the  Cos- 
mopolitan. But  both  Mr.  Twist,  who  had  been  cor- 
rupted by  Europe,  and  the  twins,  who  had  the  habits 
of  their  mother,  couldn't  imagine  doing  without  it  in 
the  afternoon,  and  they  would  have  it  in  the  hotel 
sooner  than  not  have  it  at  all.  It  was  brought  to  them 
after  a  long  time  of  waiting.  Nobody  else  was  having 
any  at  that  hour,  and  the  waiter,  when  at  last  one  was 
found,  had  difficulty  apparently  in  believing  that  they 
were  serious.  When  at  last  he  did  bring  it,  it  was  toast 
and  marmalade  and  table-napkins,  for  all  the  world 
as  though  it  had  been  breakfast. 

Then  it  was  that,  contemplating  this  with  discom- 
fort and  distaste,  as  well  as  the  place  they  were  sitting 
in  and  its  rocking-chairs  and  marble  and  rugs,  Anna- 
Felicitas  was  suddenly  smitten  by  her  idea. 

It  fell  upon  her  like  a  blow.  It  struck  her  fairly,  as 
it  were,  between  the  eyes.  She  wasn't  used  to  ideas, 
and  she  stopped  dead  in  the  middle  of  a  piece  of  toast 

230 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        231 

and  looked  at  the  others.     They  stopped  too  in  their 
eating  and  looked  at  her. 

"What's  the  matter?"  asked  Anna-Rose.  "Has 
another  button  come  off?" 

At  this  Mr.  Twist  considered  it  wisest  to  turn  his 
head  away,  for  experience  had  taught  him  that  Anna- 
Felicitas  easily  came  undone. 

'     "I've  thought  of  something,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
,     Mr.  Twist  turned  his  head  back  again.     "You  don't 
say,"  he  said,  mildly  sarcastic. 

"7cA  gratuliere,'\ssiid  Anna-Rose,  also  mildly  sarcastic. 

"I've  got  an  idea,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "But  it's  so 
luminous,"  she  said,  looking  from  one  to  the  other  in  a 
kind  of  surprise.  "Of  course.  That's  what  we'll  do. 
Ridiculous  to  waste  time  bothering  about  schools." 

There  was  a  new  expression  on  her  face  that  silenced 
the  comments  rising  to  Anna-Rose's  and  IMr.  Twist's 
tongues,  both  of  whom  had  tired  feet  and  were  there- 
fore disposed  to  sarcasm. 

Anna-Felicitas  looked  at  them,  and  they  looked  at 
her,  and  her  face  continued  to  become  visibly  more  and 
more  illuminated,  just  as  if  a  curtain  were  being  pulled 
up.  Animation  and  interest  shone  in  her  usually 
dreamy  eyes.  Her  drooping  body  sat  up  quite  straight. 
She  reminded  Anna-Rose,  who  had  a  biblically  well- 
furnished  mind,  of  Moses  when  he  came  down  from 
receiving  the  Law  on  the  mountain. 

"Well,  tell  us,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "But  not," 
she  added,  thinking  of  Moses,  "if  it's  only  more 
commandments . ' ' 

Anna-Felicitas  dropped  the  piece  of  toast  she  was 
still  holding  in  her  fingers,  and  pushed  back  her  cup. 
"Come  out  on  to  the  rocks,"  she  said  getting  up — 
"where  we  sat  this  morning."     And  she  marched  out> 


232        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

followed  by  the  other  two  with  the  odd  submissiveness 
people  show  towards  any  one  who  is  thoroughly 
determined. 

It  was  dark  and  dinner-time  before  they  got  back  to 
the  hotel.  Throughout  the  sunset  Anna-Felicitas  sat 
on  her  rock,  the  same  rock  she  had  sat  on  so  unsatis- 
factorily eight  hours  earlier,  and  expounded  her  idea. 
She  couldn't  talk  fast  enough.  She,  so  slow  and  listless, 
for  once  was  shaken  into  burning  activity.  She 
threw  off  her  hat  directly  she  got  on  to  the  sands, 
climbed  up  the  rock  as  if  it  were  a  pulpit,  and  with  her 
hands  clasped  round  her  knees  poured  out  her  plan, 
the  long  shafts  of  the  setting  sun  bathing  her  in  bright 
flames  and  making  her  more  like  Moses  than  ever, — 
if,  that  is,  one  could  imagine  Moses  as  beautiful  as 
Anna-F.,  thought  Anna-Rose,  and  as  felicitously  with- 
out his  nose  and  beard. 

It  was  wonderful  how  complete  Anna-Felicitas's 
inspiration  was.  It  reminded  Mr.  Twist  of  his  own 
about  the  teapot.  It  was,  of  course,  a  far  more  com- 
plicated matter  than  that  little  device  of  his,  and  would 
have  to  be  thought  out  very  carefully  and  approached 
very  judiciously,  but  the  wealth  of  detail  she  was 
already  ready  with  immensely  impressed  him.  She 
even  had  a  name  for  the  thing;  and  it  was  when  he 
heard  this  name,  when  it  flashed  into  her  talk  with  the 
unpremeditatedness  of  an  inspiration,  that  Mr.  Twist 
became  definitely  enthusiastic. 

He  had  an  American  eye  for  advertisement.  Respect 
for  it  was  in  his  blood.  He  instantly  saw  the  possibil- 
ities contained  in  the  name.  He  saw  what  could  he 
done  with  it,  properly  worked.  He  saw  it  on  hoardings, 
on  signposts,  in  a  thousand  contrivances  for  catching 
the  public  attention  and  sticking  there. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        233 

The  idea,  of  course,  was  fantastic,  unconventional, 
definitely  outside  what  his  mother  and  that  man  Uncle 
Arthur  would  consider  proper,  but  it  was  outside  the 
standards  of  such  people  that  life  and  fruitfulness  and 
interest  and  joy  began.  He  had  escaped  from  the 
death-like  grip  of  his  mother,  and  Uncle  Arthur  had 
himself  forcibly  expulsed  the  Annas  from  his,  and  now 
that  they  were  all  so  far  away,  instead  of  still  timor- 
ously trying  to  go  on  living  up  to  those  distant  sterile 
ideas  why  shouldn't  they  boldly  go  out  into  the  light 
and  colour  that  was  waiting  everywhere  for  the  free 
of  spirit? 

Mr.  Twist  had  often  observed  how  perplexingly 
much  there  is  to  be  said  for  the  opposite  sides  of  a 
question.  He  was  now,  but  with  no  perplexity,  for 
Anna-Felicitas  had  roused  his  enthusiasm,  himself 
taking  the  very  opposite  view  as  to  the  proper  thing  for 
the  twins  to  do  from  the  one  he  had  taken  in  the  night 
and  on  the  rocks  that  morning.  School?  Nonsense. 
Absurd  to  bury  these  bright  shoots  of  everlastingness — 
this  is  what  they  looked  like  to  him,  afire  with  enthu- 
siasm and  the  setting  sun — in  such  a  place  of  ink.  If 
the  plan,  owing  to  the  extreme  youth  of  the  Annas, 
were  unconventional,  conventionality  could  be  secured 
by  giving  a  big  enough  salary  to  a  middle-aged  lady  to 
come  and  preside.  He  himself  would  hover  benefi- 
cently in  the  background  over  the  undertaking. 

Anna-Felicitas's  idea  was  to  use  Uncle  Arthur's 
£200  in  renting  one  of  the  little  wooden  cottages  that 
seemed  to  be  plentiful,  preferably  one  about  five  miles 
out  in  the  country,  make  it  look  inside  like  an  English 
cottage,  all  pewter  and  chintz  and  valances,  make  it 
look  outside  like  the  more  innocent  type  of  German 
wayside  inn,  with  green  tables  and  spreading  trees,  get 


234        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

a  cook  who  would  concentrate  on  cakes,  real  lovely  ones, 
various,  poetic,  wonderful  cakes,  and  start  an  inn  for 
tea  alone  that  should  become  the  fashion.  It  ought  to 
be  so  arranged  that  it  became  the  fashion.  She  and 
Anna-Rose  would  do  the  waiting.  The  prices  would 
be  very  high,  indeed  exorbitant — this  Mr.  Twist 
regarded  as  another  inspiration, — so  that  it  should  be 
a  distinction,  give  people  a  cachet,  to  have  had  tea  at 
their  cottage;  and  in  a  prominent  position  in  the  road 
in  front  of  it,  where  every  motor-car  would  be  bound  to 
see  it,  there  would  be  a  real  wayside  inn  signboard, 
such  as  inns  in  England  always  have,  with  its  name 
on  it. 

"If  people  here  were  really  neutral  you  might  have 
the  Imperial  arms  of  Germany  and  England  emblaz- 
oned on  it,"  interrupted  Mr.  Twist,  "just  to  show  your 
own  extreme  and  peculiar  neutrality." 

"We  might  call  it  The  Christopher  and  Columbus," 
interrupted  Anna-Rose,  who  had  been  sitting  open- 
mouthed  hanging  on  Anna-Felicitas's  words. 

"Or  you  might  call  it  The  Cup  and  Saucer,"  said 
Mr.  Twist,  "and  have  a  big  cup  brimming  with  tea 
and  cream  painted  on  it " 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "It  is  The  Open  Arms. 
That  is  its  name." 

And  Mr.  Twist,  inclined  to  smile  and  criticise  up 
to  this,  bowed  his  head  in  instantaneous  recognition 
and  acceptance. 

He  became  definitely  enthusiastic.  Of  course  he 
would  see  to  it  that  not  a  shadow  of  ambiguousness 
was  allowed  to  rest  on  such  a  name.  The  whole  thing 
as  he  saw  it,  his  mind  working  rapidly  while  Anna- 
Felicitas  still  talked,  would  be  a  happy  joke,  a  joyous, 
gay  little  assault  on  the  purses  of  millionaires,  in  whom 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        235 

the  district  abounded  judging  from  the  beautiful  houses 
and  gardens  he  had  passed  that  day, — but  a  joke  and  a 
gay  assault  that  would  at  the  same  time  employ  and 
support  the  Annas;  solve  them,  in  fact,  saw  Mr.  Twist, 
who  all  day  long  had  been  regarding  them  much  as  one 
does  a  diflScult  mathematical  problem. 

It  was  Mr.  Twist  who  added  the  final  inspiration  to 
Anna-Felicitas's  many,  when  at  last  she  paused  for 
want  of  breath.  The  inn,  he  said,  should  be  run  as  a 
war  philanthropy.  All  that  was  over  after  the  ex- 
penses were  paid  and  a  proper  percentage  reserved  by 
the  Annas  as  interest  on  their  invested  capital — they 
listened  with  eager  respect  to  these  business-like 
expressions — would  be  handed  over  to  the  American 
Red  Cross.  "That,"  explained  Mr.  Twist,  "would 
seal  the  inn  as  both  respectable  and  fashionable,  which 
is  exactly  what  we  would  want  to  make  it." 

And  he  then  announced,  and  they  accepted  without 
argument  or  questioning  in  the  general  excitement, 
that  he  would  have  himself  appointed  their  legal 
guardian. 

They  didn't  go  back  to  the  Cosmopolitan  till  dinner- 
time, there  was  so  much  to  say,  and  after  dinner,  a  meal 
at  which  Mr.  Twist  had  to  suppress  them  a  good  deal 
because  The  Open  Arms  kept  on  bursting  through  into 
their  talk  and,  as  at  breakfast,  the  people  at  the  tables 
round  them  were  obviously  trying  to  hear,  they  went 
out  once  again  on  to  the  sea-front  and  walked  up  and 
down  till  late  continuing  the  discussion,  mostly  sim- 
ultaneously as  regards  the  twins,  while  Mr.  Twist 
chimed  in  with  practical  suggestions  whenever  they 
stopped  to  take  breath. 

He  had  to  drive  them  indoors  to  bed  at  last,  for  the 
lights  were  going  out  one  by  one  in  the  Cosmopolitan 


23G        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

bedroom  windows,  where  the  virtuous  rich,  exhausted 
by  their  day  of  virtue,  were  subsiding,  prostrate  with 
boredom  and  respectabihty,  into  their  various  legiti- 
mate lairs,  and  he  stayed  alone  out  by  the  sea  rapidly 
sketching  out  his  activities  for  the  next  day. 

There  was  the  guardianship  to  be  arranged,  the 
cottage  to  be  found,  and  the  middle-aged  lady  to  be 
advertised  for.  She,  indeed,  must  be  secured  at  once; 
got  to  come  at  once  to  the  Cosmopolitan  and  preside 
over  the  twins  until  they  all  proceeded  in  due  season  to 
The  Open  Arms.  She  must  be  a  motherly  middle-aged 
lady,  decided  Mr.  Twist,  affectionate,  skilled  in  manag- 
ing a  cook,  business-like,  intellectual,  and  obedient. 
Her  feminine  tact  would  enable  her  to  appear  to  pre- 
side while  she  was  in  reality  obeying.  She  must  imder- 
stand  that  she  was  there  for  the  Annas,  and  that  the 
Annas  were  not  there  for  her.  She  must  approach  the 
situation  in  the  spirit  of  the  enlightened  king  of  a 
democratic  country,  who  receives  its  honours,  accepts 
its  respect,  but  does  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  he  is 
merely  the  Chief  Servant  of  the  people.  Mr.  Twist 
didn't  want  a  female  Uncle  Arthur  let  loose  upon  those 
blessed  little  girls;  besides,  they  would  have  the  danger- 
ous weapon  in  their  hands  of  being  able  to  give  her 
notice,  and  it  would  considerably  dim  the  reputation 
of  The  Open  Arms  if  there  were  a  too  frequent  depart- 
ure from  it  of  middle-aged  ladies. 

Mr.  Twist  felt  himself  very  responsible  and  full  of 
anxieties  as  he  paced  up  and  down  alone,  but  he  was 
really  enjoying  himself.  That  youthful  side  of  him, 
so  usual  in  the  artistic  temperament,  which  leaped 
about  at  the  least  pleasant  provocation  like  a  happy 
lamb  when  the  sunshine  tickles  it,  was  feeling  that  this 
was  great  fun;  and  the  business  side  of  him  was  feeling 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIVIBUS        237 

that  it  was  not  only  great  fun  but  probably  an  extraor- 
dinarily productive  piece  of  money-making. 

The  ignorant  Annas — bless  their  little  hearts,  he 
thought,  he  who  only  the  night  before  on  that  very 
spot  had  been  calling  them  accursed — believed  that 
their  £200  was  easily  going  to  do  everything.  This 
was  lucky,  for  otherwise  there  would  have  been  some 
thorny  paths  of  argument  and  convincing  to  be  got 
through  before  they  would  have  allowed  him  to  help 
finance  the  undertaking;  probably  they  never  would 
have,  in  their  scrupulous  independence.  Mr.  Twist 
reflected  with  satisfaction  on  the  usefulness  of  his  tea- 
pot. At  last  he  was  going  to  be  able  to  do  something, 
thanks  to  it,  that  gave  him  real  gladness.  His  ambu- 
lance to  France — that  was  duty.  His  lavishness  to  his 
mother — that  again  was  duty.  But  here  was  delight, 
here  at  last  was  what  his  lonely  heart  had  always  longed 
for, — a  chance  to  help  and  make  happy,  and  be  with 
and  watch  being  made  happy,  dear  women-things,  dear 
soft  sweet  kind  women-things,  dear  sister-things,  dear 
children-things.     .     .     . 

It  has  been  said  somewhere  before  that  Mr.  Twist 
was  meant  by  Nature  to  be  a  mother;  but  Nature, 
when  she  was  half-way  through  him,  forgot  and  turned 
him  into  a  man. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  very  next  morning  they  set  out  house-hunt- 
ing, and  two  days  later  they  had  found  what 
they  wanted.  Not  exactly  what  they  wanted 
of  course,  for  the  reason,  as  Anna-Felicitas  explained, 
that  nothing  ever  is  exactly,  but  full  of  possibilities  to 
the  eye  of  imagination,  and  there  were  six  of  this  sort 
of  eye  gazing  at  the  little  house. 

It  stood  at  right  angles  to  a  road  much  used  by  motor- 
ists because  of  its  beauty,  and  hidden  from  it  by  trees 
on  the  top  of  a  slope  of  green  fields  scattered  over  with 
live  oaks  that  gently  descended  down  towards  the  sea. 
Its  back  windows,  and  those  parts  of  it  that  a  house  is 
ashamed  of,  were  close  up  to  a  thick  grove  of  eucalyp- 
tus which  continued  to  the  foot  of  the  mountains.  It 
had  an  overrun  little  garden  in  front,  separated  from 
the  fields  by  a  riotous  hedge  of  sweetbriar.  It  had  a 
few  orange,  and  lemon,  and  peach  trees  on  its  west  side, 
the  survivors  of  what  had  once  been  intended  for  an 
orchard,  and  a  line  of  pepper  trees  on  the  other,  be- 
tween it  and  the  road.  Neglected  roses  and  a  huge 
wistaria  clambered  over  its  dilapidated  face.  Somebody 
had  once  planted  syringas,and  snowballs,  and  lilacs  along 
the  inside  of  the  line  of  pepper  trees,  and  they  had  grown 
extravagantly  and  were  an  impenetrable  screen,  even 
without  the  sweeping  pepper  trees  from  the  road. 

It  hadn't  been  lived  in  for  years,  and  it  was  well  on 
in  decay,  being  made  of  wood,  but  the  situation  was 
perfect  for  The  Open  Arms.     Every  motorist  coming 

238 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        239 

up  that  road  would  see  the  signboard  outside  the 
pepper  trees,  and  would  certainly  want  to  stop  at  the 
neat  little  gate,  and  pass  through  the  flowery  tunnel 
that  would  be  cut  through  the  syringas,  and  see  what 
was  inside.  Other  houses  were  offered  of  a  far  higher 
class,  for  this  one  had  never  been  lived  in  by  gentry, 
said  the  house-agent  endeavouring  to  put  them  off  a 
thing  so  broken  down.  A  farmer  had  had  it  years 
back,  he  told  them,  and  instead  of  confining  himself 
to  drinking  the  milk  from  his  own  cows,  which  was  the 
only  appropriate  drink  for  a  farmer  the  agent  main- 
tained— he  was  the  president  of  the  local  Anti-Vice-In- 
All-Its-Forms  League — ^he  put  his  money  as  he  earned 
it  into  gin,  and  the  gin  into  himseff,  and  so  after  a  bit 
was  done  for. 

The  other  houses  the  agent  pressed  on  them  were 
superior  in  every  way  except  situation;  but  situation 
being  the  first  consideration,  Mr.  Twist  agreed  with 
the  twins,  who  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  neglected 
little  house  whose  shabbiness  was  being  so  indus- 
triously hidden  by  roses,  that  this  was  the  place,  and  a 
week  later  it  and  its  garden  had  been  bought — Mr, 
Twist  didn't  tell  the  twins  he  had  bought  it,  in  order  to 
avoid  argument,  but  it  was  manifestly  the  simple 
thing  to  do — and  over  and  round  and  through  it  swarm- 
ed workmen  all  day  long,  like  so  many  diligent  and 
determined  ants.  Also,  before  the  week  was  out,  the 
middle-aged  lady  had  been  found  and  engaged,  and  a 
cook  of  gifts  in  the  matter  of  cakes.  This  is  the  way 
you  do  things  in  America.  You  decide  what  it  is  that 
you  really  want,  and  you  start  right  away  and  get  it. 
"And  everything  so  cheap  too!"  exclaimed  the  twins 
gleefully,  whose  £200  was  behaving,  it  appeared,  very 
like  the  widow's  cruse. 


240        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

This  belief,  however,  received  a  blow  when  they  went 
without  Mr.  Twist,  who  was  too  busy  now  for  any 
extra  expeditions,  to  choose  and  buy  chintzes,  and  it  was 
finally  shattered  when  the  various  middle-aged  ladies 
who  responded  to  Mr.  Twist's  cry  for  help  in  the  adver- 
tising columns  of  the  Acapulco  and  Los  Angeles  press 
one  and  all  demanded  as  salary  more  than  the  whole 
Twinkler  capital. 

The  twins  had  a  bad  moment  of  chill  fear  and  mis- 
giving, and  then  once  more  were  saved  by  an  inspira- 
tion,— this  time  Anna-Rose's. 

"I  know,"  she  exclaimed,  her  face  clearing.  "We'll 
make  it  Co-operative." 

Mr.  Twist,  whose  brow  too  had  been  puckered  in 
the  effort  to  think  out  a  way  of  persuading  the  twins 
to  let  him  help  them  openly  with  his  money,  for  in 
spite  of  his  going  to  be  their]  guardian  they  remained 
difficult  on  this  point,  jumped  at  the  idea.  He 
couldn't,  of  course,  tell  what  in  Anna-Rose's  mind 
the  word  co-operative  stood  for,  but  felt  confident 
that  whatever  it  stood  for  he  could  manipulate  it  into 
covering  his  difficulties. 

"What  is  co-operative?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  wuth 
a  new  respect  for  a  sister  who  could  suddenly  produce  a 
business  word  like  that  and  seem  to  know  all  about  it. 
She  had  heard  the  word  herself,  but  it  sat  very  loosely 
in  her  head,  at  no  point  touching  anything  else. 

"Haven't  you  heard  of  Co-operative  Stores.?"  in- 
quired Anna-Rose. 

"Yes  but " 

"Well,  then." 

"Yes,  but  what  would  a  co-operative  inn  be?"  per- 
sisted Anna-Felicitas. 

"  One  run  on  co-operative  lines,  of  course,"  said  Anna- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        241 

Rose  grandly.  "Everybody  pays  for  everything,  so 
that  nobody  particular  pays  for  anything." 

"Oh,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"I  mean,"  said  Anna-Rose,  who  felt  herself  that 
this  might  be  clearer,  "it's  when  you  pay  the  servants 
and  the  rent  and  the  cakes  and  things  out  of  what  you 
get." 

"Oh,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "And  will  they  wait 
quite  quietly  till  we've  got  it?" 

"Of  course,  if  we're  all  co-operative." 

"I  see,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  who  saw  as  little  as 
before,  but  knew  of  old  that  Anna-Rose  grew  irascible 
when  pressed. 

"See  here  now,"  said  Mr.  Twist  weightily,  "if  that 
isn't  an  idea.  Only  you've  got  hold  of  the  wrong 
word.  The  word  you  want  is  profit-sharing.  And  as 
this  undertaking  is  going  to  be  a  big  success  there  will 
be  big  profits,  and  any  amount  of  cakes  and  salaries 
will  be  paid  for  as  glibly  and  easily  as  you  can  say  your 
ABC." 

And  he  explained  that  till  they  were  fairly  started 
he  was  going  to  stay  in  California,  and  that  he 
intended  during  this  time  to  be  book-keeper,  secre- 
tary, and  treasurer  to  The  Open  Arms,  besides 
Advertiser-in-Chief,  which  was,  he  said,  the  most 
important  post  of  all;  and  if  they  would  be  so  good 
as  to  leave  this  side  of  it  unquestioningly  to  him, 
who  had  had  a  business  training,  he  would  under- 
take that  the  Red  Cross,  American  or  British, 
whichever  they  decided  to  support,  should  profit 
handsomely. 

Thus  did  Mr.  Twist  artfully  obtain  a  free  hand  as 
financial  backer  of  The  Open  Arms.  The  profit- 
sharing  system  seemed  to  the  twins  admirable.     It 


242        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

cleared  away  every  scruple  and  every  diflficulty.  They 
now  bought  chintzes  and  pewter  pots  in  the  faith  of  it 
without  a  qualm,  and  even  ceased  to  blench  at  the 
salary  of  the  lady  engaged  to  be  their  background, — 
indeed  her  very  expensiveness  pleased  them,  for  it 
gave  them  confidence  that  she  must  at  such  a  price  be 
the  right  one,  because  nobody,  they  agreed,  who  knew 
herself  not  to  be  the  right  one  would  have  the  face  to 
demand  so  much. 

This  lady,  the  widow  of  Bruce  D.  Bilton  of  Chicago, 
of  whom  of  course,  she  said,  the  Miss  Twinklers  had 
heard — the  Miss  Twinklers  blushed  and  felt  ashamed  of 
themselves  because  they  hadn't,  and  indistinctly  mur- 
mured something  about  having  heard  of  Cornelius  K. 
Vanderbilt,  though,  and  wouldn't  he  do — ^had  a  great 
deal  of  very  beautiful  snow-white  hair,  while  at  the 
same  time  she  was  only  middle-aged.  She  firmly 
announced,  when  she  perceived  Mr.  Twist's  spectacles 
dwelling  on  her  hair,  that  she  wasn't  yet  forty,  and  her 
one  fear  was  that  she  mightn't  be  middle-aged  enough. 
The  advertisement  had  particularly  mentioned  middle- 
aged;  and  though  she  was  aware  that  her  brains  and 
fingers  and  feet  couldn't  possibly  be  described  as  coming 
under  that  heading,  she  said  her  hair,  on  the  other  hand, 
might  well  be  regarded  as  having  overshot  the  mark. 
But  its  turning  white  had  nothing  to  do  with  age.  It 
had  done  that  when  Mr.  Bilton  passed  over.  No  hair 
could  have  stood  such  grief  as  hers  when  Mr.  Bilton 
took  that  final  step.  She  had  been  considering  the 
question  of  age,  she  informed  Mr.  Twist,  from  every 
aspect  before  coming  to  the  interview,  for  she  didn't 
want  to  make  a  mistake  herself  nor  allow  the  Miss 
Twinklers  to  make  a  mistake;  and  she  had  arrived  at 
the  conclusion  that  what  with  her  hair  being  too  old 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        243 

and  the  rest  of  her  being  too  young,  taken  altogether 
she  struck  an  absolute  average  and  perfectly  fulfilled 
the  condition  required;  and  as  she  wished  to  live  in  the 
country,  town  life  disturbing  her  psychically  too  much, 
she  was  willing  to  give  up  her  home  and  her  circle — it 
was  a  real  sacrifice — and  accept  the  position  offered  by 
the  Miss  Twinklers.  She  was,  she  said,  very  quiet,  and 
yet  at  the  same  time  she  was  very  active.  She  liked 
to  fly  round  among  duties,  and  she  liked  to  retire 
into  her  own  mentaHty  and  think.  She  was  all  for 
equilibrium,  for  the  right  balancing  of  body  and 
mind  in  a  proper  alternation  of  suitable  action. 
Thu5  she  attained  poise, — she  was  one  of  the  most 
poised  women  her  friends  knew,  they  told  her.  Also 
she  had  a  warm  heart,  and  liked  both  philan- 
thropy and  orphans.  Especially  if  they  were  war 
ones. 

Mrs.  Bilton  talked  so  quickly  and  so  profusely  that 
it  took  quite  a  long  time  to  engage  her.  There  never 
seemed  to  be  a  pause  in  which  one  could  do  it.  It  was 
in  Los  Angeles,  in  an  hotel  to  which  Mr.  Twist  had 
motored  the  twins,  starting  at  daybreak  that  morning 
in  order  to  see  this  lady,  that  the  personal  interview  took 
place,  and  by  lunch-time  they  had  been  personally 
interviewing  her  for  three  hours  without  stopping. 
It  seemed  years.  The  twins  longed  to  engage  her,  if 
only  to  keep  her  quiet;  but  Mrs.  Bilton's  spirited  de- 
scription of  life  as  she  saw  it  and  of  the  way  it  affected 
something  she  called  her  psyche,  was  without  punc- 
tuation and  without  even  the  tiny  gap  of  a  comma  in  it 
through  which  one  might  have  dexterously  slipped  a 
definite  offer.  She  had  to  be  interrupted  at  last,  in 
spite  of  the  discomfort  this  gave  to  the  Twinkler  and 
Twist  politeness,  because  a  cook  was  coming  to  be 


244        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

interviewed  directly  after  lunch,  and  they  were  dying 
for  some  food. 

The  moment  Mr.  Twist  saw  Mrs.  Bil ton's  beautiful 
white  hair  he  knew  she  was  the  one.  That  hair  w^as 
what  The  Open  Arms  wanted  and  must  have;  that  hair, 
with  a  well-made  black  dress  to  go  with  it,  would  be  a 
shield  through  which  no  breath  of  misunderstanding  as 
to  the  singleness  of  purpose  with  which  the  inn  was  run 
w  ould  ever  penetrate.  He  would  have  settled  it  with  her 
in  five  minutes  if  she  could  have  been  got  to  listen,  but 
Mrs.  Bilton  couldn't  be  got  to  listen;  and  when  it 
became  clear  that  no  amount  of  patient  waiting  would 
bring  him  any  nearer  the  end  of  what  she  had  to  say 
Mr.  Twist  was  forced  to  take  off  his  coat,  as  it  were,  and 
plunge  abruptly  into  the  very  middle  of  her  flow  of 
words  and  convey  to  her  as  quickly  as  possible,  as  one 
swimming  for  his  life  against  the  stream,  that  she  was 
engaged.  "Engaged,  Mrs.  Bilton," — he  called  out, 
raising  his  voice  above  the  sound  of  Mrs.  Bilton's 
rushing  words,  "engaged."  She  would  be  expected 
at  the  Cosmopolitan,  swiftly  continued  Mr.  Twist, 
who  was  as  particularly  anxious  to  have  her  at 
the  Cosmopolitan  as  the  twins  were  particularly 
anxious  not  to, — ^for  for  the  life  of  them  they  couldn't 
see  why  IMrs.  Bilton  should  be  stirred  up  before 
they  started  inhabiting  the  cottage, — within  three 
days 

"Mr.  Twist,  it  can't  be  done,"  broke  in  Mrs. 
Bilton  a  fresh  and  mountainous  wave  of  speech 
gathering  above  Mr.  Twist's  head.  "It  abso- 
lutely  " 

"Within  a  week,  then,"  he  called  out  quickly,  holding 
up  the  breaking  of  the  wave  for  an  instant  while  he 
hastened    to    and    opened    the    door.     "And    good- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        245 

morning,  Mrs.  Bilton — my  apologies,  my  sincere 
apologies,  but  we  have  to  hurry  away " 

The  cook  was  engaged  that  afternoon.  Mr.  Twist 
appeared  to  have  mixed  up  the  answers  to  his  advertise- 
ment, for  when,  after  paying  the  luncheon-bill,  he 
went  to  join  the  twins  in  the  sitting-room,  he  found 
them  waiting  for  him  in  the  passage  outside  the  door 
looking  excited. 

"The  cook's  come,"  whispered  Anna-Rose,  jerking 
her  head  towards  the  shut  door.     "She's  a  man." 

"She's  a  Chinaman,"  whispered  Anna-Felicitas. 

Mr.  Twist  was  surprised.  He  thought  he  had  an  ap- 
pointment with  a  woman, — a  coloured  lady  from  South 
Carohna  who  was  a  specialist  in  pastries  and  had  im- 
maculate references,  but  the  Chinaman  assured  him 
that  he  hadn't,  and  that  his  appointment  was  with  him 
alone,  with  him,  Li  Koo.  In  proof  of  it,  he  said, 
spreading  out  his  hands,  here  he  was.  "We  make 
cakies — li'l  cakies — many,  lovely  li'l  cakies,"  said 
Li  Koo,  observing  doubt  on  the  gentleman's  face;  and 
from  somewhere  on  his  person  he  whipped  out  a  paper 
bag  of  them  as  a  conjurer  whips  a  rabbit  out  of  a  hat, 
and  offered  them  to  the  twins. 

They  ate.     He  was  engaged.     It  took  five  minutes. 

After  he  had  gone,  and  punctually  to  the  minute 
of  her  appointment,  an  over-flowing  Negress  ap- 
peared and  announced  that  she  was  the  coloured 
lady  from  South  Carolina  to  whom  the  gentleman 
had  written. 

Mr.  Twist  uncomfortably  felt  that  Li  Koo  had  some- 
how been  clever.  Impossible,  however,  to  go  back  on 
him,  having  eaten  his  cakes.  Besides,  they  were  per- 
fect cakes,  blown  together  apparently  out  of  flowers 
and  honey  and  cream, — cakes  which,  combined  with 


246        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLmiBUS 

Mrs.  Bilton's  Iiair,  would  make  the  fortune  of  The 
Open  Arms. 

The  coloured  lady,  therefore,  was  sent  away,  dis- 
appointed in  spite  of  the  douceur  and  fair  words  Mr. 
Twist  gave  her;  and  she  was  so  much  disappointed 
that  they  could  hear  her  being  it  out  loud  all  the  way 
along  the  passage  and  down  the  stairs,  and  the  nature 
of  her  expression  of  her  disappointment  was  such  that 
Mr.  Twist,  as  he  tried  by  animated  conversation  to 
prevent  it  reaching  the  twins'  ears,  could  only  be  thank- 
ful after  all  that  Li  Koo  had  been  so  clever.  It  did, 
however,  reach  the  twins'  ears,  but  they  didn't  turn  a 
hair  because  of  Uncle  Arthur.  They  merely  expressed 
surprise  at  its  redness,  seeing  that  it  came  out  of  some- 
body so  black. 

Directly  after  this  trip  to  Los  Angeles  advertise- 
ments began  to  creep  over  the  countryside.  They 
crept  along  the  roads  where  motorists  were  frequent 
and  peeped  at  passing  cars  round  corners  and  over 
hedges.  They  were  taciturn  advertisements,  and  just 
said  three  words  in  big,  straight,  plain  white  letters 
on  a  sea-blue  ground : 

THE  OPEN  ARMS 

People  passing  in  their  cars  saw  them,  and  vaguely 
thought  it  must  be  the  name  of  a  book.  They  had 
better  get  it.  Other  people  would  have  got  it.  It 
couldn't  be  a  medicine  nor  anything  to  eat,  and  was 
probably  a  religious  novel.  Novels  about  feet  or  arms 
were  usually  religious.  A  few  considered  it  sounded  a 
little  improper,  and  as  though  the  book,  far  from  being 
religious,  would  not  be  altogether  nice;  but  only  very 
proper  people  who  distrusted  everything,  even  arms, 
took  this  view. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        247 

After   a   week   the   same   advertisements   appeared 
with  three  lines  added : 

THE  OPEN  ARMS 

YES 

BUT 

WHY?    WHERE?    WHAT? 

And  then  ten  days  after  that  came  fresh  ones: 
THE  OPEN  ARMS 
WILL  OPEN 

wroE 

On  November  20th  at  Four  p.m. 

N.B.    WATCH  THE  SIGNPOSTS. 

And  while  the  countryside — an  idle  countryside, 
engaged  almost  wholly  in  holiday-making  and  glad  of 
any  new  distraction — began  to  be  interested  and  asked 
questions,  Mr.  Twist  was  working  day  and  night  at 
getting  the  thing  ready. 

All  day  long  he  was  in  Acapulco  or  out  at  the  cottage, 
urging,  hurrying,  criticizing,  encouraging,  praising 
and  admonishing.  His  heart  and  soul  and  brain  was 
in  this,  his  business  instincts  and  his  soft  domestic  side. 
His  brain,  after  working  at  top  speed  during  the  day 
with  the  architect,  the  painter  and  decorator,  the  fur- 
nisher, the  garden  expert,  the  plumbing  expert,  the 
electric-light  expert,  the  lawyer,  the  estate  agent,  and 
numberless  other  persons,  during  the  night  meditated 
and  evolved  advertisements.  There  was  to  be  a 
continual  stream  week  by  week  after   the  inn   was 


248        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

opened  of  ingenious  advertisements.     Altogether  Mr. 
Twist  had  his  hands  full. 

The  inn  was  to  look  artless  and  simple  and  small, 
while  actually  being  the  last  word  in  roomy  and  so- 
phisticated comfort.  It  was  to  be  as  like  an  old  Eng- 
lish inn  to  look  at  as  it  could  possibly  be  got  to  be 
going  on  his  own  and  the  twins'  recollections  and  the 
sensationally  coloured  Elizabethan  pictures  in  the 
architect's  portfolio.  It  didn't  disturb  Mr.  Twist's 
unprejudiced  American  mind  that  an  English  inn  em- 
bowered in  heliotrope  and  arum  lilies  and  eucalyptus 
trees  would  be  odd  and  unnatural,  and  it  wouldn't 
disturb  anybody  else  there  either.  Were  not  Swiss 
mountain  chalets  to  be  found  in  the  fertile  plains  along 
the  Pacific,  complete  with  fir  trees  specially  imported 
and  uprooted  in  their  maturity  and  brought  down  with 
tons  of  their  own  earth  attached  to  their  roots  and  re- 
planted among  carefully  disposed,  apparently  Swiss 
rocks,  so  that  what  one  day  had  been  a  place  smiling 
with  orange-groves  was  the  next  a  bit  of  frowning 
northern  landscape?  And  were  there  not  Italian  villas 
dotted  about  also?  But  these  looked  happier  and  more 
at  home  than  the  chalets.  And  there  were  buildings 
too,  like  small  Gothic  cathedrals,  looking  as  uncom- 
fortable and  depressed  as  a  woman  who  has  come  to  a 
party  in  the  wrong  clothes.  But  no  matter.  Nobody 
minded.  So  that  an  English  inn  added  to  this  com- 
pany, with  a  little  German  beer-garden — only  there 
wasn't  to  be  any  beer — wouldn't  cause  the  least  sur- 
prise or  discomfort  to  anybody. 

In  the  end,  the  sole  resemblance  the  cottage  had  to  an 
English  inn  was  the  signboard  out  in  the  road.  With 
the  best  will  in  the  world,  and  the  liveliest  financial 
encouragement  from  Mr.  Twist,  the  architect  couldn't 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        249 

in  three  weeks  turn  a  wooden  Californian  cottage  into 
an  ancient  red-brick  EKzabethan  pothouse.  He  got  a 
thatched  roof  on  to  it  by  a  miracle  of  hustle,  but  the 
wooden  walls  remained;  he  also  found  a  real  antique 
heavy  oak  front  door  studded  with  big  rusty  nailheads 
in  a  San  Francisco  curiosity  shop,  that  would  serve, 
he  said,  as  a  basis  for  any  wished-for  hark-back  later 
on  when  there  was  more  time  to  the  old  girl's  epoch — 
thus  did  he  refer  to  Great  Eliza  and  her  spacious  days — 
and  meanwhile  it  gave  the  building,  he  alleged,  a 
considerable  air;  but  as  this  door  in  that  ^le  climate 
was  hooked  open  all  day  long  it  didn't  disturb  the  gay, 
the  almost  jocose  appearance  of  the  place  when  every- 
thing was  finished. 

Houses  have  their  expressions,  their  distinctive  faces, 
very  much  as  people  have,  meditated  Mr.  Twist  the 
morning  of  the  opening,  as  he  sat  astride  a  green  chair 
at  the  bottom  of  the  little  garden,  where  a  hedge  of 
sweetbriar  beautifully  separated  the  Twinkler  domain 
from  the  rolling  fields  that  lay  between  it  and  the 
Pacific,  and  stared  at  his  handiwork ;  and  the  conclusion 
was  forced  upon  him — reluctantly,  for  it  was  the  last 
thing  he  had  wanted  The  Open  Arms  to  do — that 
tlie  thing  looked  as  if  it  were  winking  at  him. 

Positively,  thought  Mr.  Twist,  his  hat  on  the  back 
of  his  head,  staring,  that  was  what  it  seemed  to  be 
doing.  How  was  that.^^  He  studied  it  profoundly,  his 
head  on  one  side.  Was  it  that  it  was  so  very  gay?  He 
hadn't  meant  it  to  be  gay  like  that.  He  had  intended 
a  restrained  and  disciplined  simplicity,  a  Puritan  unpre- 
tentiousness,  with  those  sweet  maidens,  the  Twinkler 
twins,  flitting  like  modest  doves  in  and  out  among  its 
tea-tables;  but  one  small  thmg  had  been  added  to  an- 
other small  thing  at  their  suggestion,  each  small  thing 


250        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

taken  separately  apparently  not  mattering  at  all, 
and  here  it  was  almost — he  hoped  it  was  only  his 
imagination — winking  at  him.  It  looked  a  familiar 
little  house;  jocular;  very  open  indeed  about  the 
arms. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

VARIOUS  things  had  happened,  however,  before 
this  morning  of  the  great  day  was  reached,  and 
Mr.  Twist  had  had  some  harassing  experiences. 

One  of  the  first  things  he  had  done  after  the  visit  to 
Los  Angeles  was  to  take  steps  in  the  matter  of  the 
guardianship.  He  had  written  to  Mrs.  Bilton  that  he 
was  the  Miss  Twinklers'  guardian,  though  it  was  not  at 
that  moment  true.  It  was  clear,  he  thought,  that  it 
should  be  made  true  as  quickly  as  possible,  and  he 
therefore  sought  out  a  lawyer  in  Acapulco  the  morning 
after  the  interview.  This  was  not  the  same  lawyer  who 
did  his  estate  business  for  him;  Mr.  Twist  thought  it 
best  to  have  a  separate  one  for  more  personal  affairs. 

On  hearing  Mr.  Twist's  name  announced,  the  lawyer 
greeted  him  as  an  old  friend.  He  knew,  of  course,  all 
about  the  teapot,  for  the  Non-Trickier  was  as  frequent 
in  American  families  as  the  Bible  and  much  more 
regularly  used;  but  he  also  knew  about  the  cottage  at 
the  foot  of  the  hills,  what  it  had  cost — which  was  little 
— and  what  it  would  cost — which  was  enormous — 
before  it  was  fit  to  live  in.  The  only  thing  he  didn't 
know  was  that  it  was  to  be  used  for  anything  except 
an  ordinary  pied-a-terre.  He  had  heard,  too,  of  the 
presence  at  the  Cosmopolitan  of  the  twins,  and  on  this 
point,  like  the  rest  of  Acapulco,  was  a  little  curious. 

The  social  column  of  the  Acapulco  daily  paper  hadn't 
been  able  to  give  any  accurate  description  of  the 
relationship    of    the    Twinklers    to    Mr.    Twist.     Its 

251 


252        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

paragraph  announcing  his  arrival  had  been  obliged 
merely  to  say,  while  awaiting  more  detailed  informa- 
tion, that  Mr.  Edward  A.  Twist,  the  well-loiown  Break- 
fast Table  Benefactor  and  giftedinven  tor  of  the  fa- 
mous Non-Trickier  Teapot,  had  arrived  from  New  York 
and  was  staying  at  the  Cosmopolitan  Hotel  with 
entourage;  and  the  day  after  this  the  lawyer,  who  got 
about  a  bit,  as  everybody  else  did  in  that  encouraging 
climate,  happening  to  look  in  at  the  Cosmopolitan  to 
have  a  talk  with  a  friend,  had  seen  the  entourage. 

It  was  in  the  act  of  passing  through  the  hall  on  its 
way  upstairs,  followed  by  a  boy  carrying  a  canary  in  a 
cage.  Even  without  the  boy  and  the  canary  it  was  a 
conspicuous  object.  The  lawyer  asked  his  friend  who 
the  cute  httle  girls  were,  and  was  interested  to  hear  he 
was  beholding  Mr.  Edward  A.  Twist's  entourage.  His 
friend  told  him  that  opinion  in  the  hotel  was  divided 
about  the  precise  nature  of  this  entourage  and  its  rela- 
tionship to  Mr.  Twist,  but  it  finally  came  to  be  generally 
supposed  that  the  Miss  Twinklers  had  been  placed  in 
his  charge  by  parents  living  far  away  in  order  that  he 
might  safely  see  them  put  to  one  of  the  yoimg  ladies' 
finishing  schools  in  that  agreeable  district.  The  house 
Mr.  Twist  was  taking  was  not  connected  in  the  Cos- 
mopolitan mind  with  the  Twinklers.  Houses  were 
always  being  taken  in  that  paradise  by  wealthy  per- 
sons from  imkinder  climates.  He  would  live  in  it 
three  months  ia  the  year,  thought  the  Cosmopolitan, 
bring  his  mother,  and  keep  in  this  way  an  occasional 
eye  on  his  charges.  The  hotel  guests  regarded  the 
Twinklers  at  this  stage  with  nothing  but  benevolence 
and  goodwill,  for  they  had  up  to  then  only  been  seen 
and  not  heard;  and  as  one  of  their  leading  character- 
istics was  a  desire  to  explain,  especially  if    anybody 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        25a 

looked  a  little  surprised,  which  everybody  usually  did 
quite  early  in  conversation  with  them,  this  was  at  that 
moment,  the  delicate  moment  before  Mrs.  Bilton's 
arrival,  fortunate. 

The  lawyer,  then,  who  appreciated  the  young  and 
pretty  as  much  as  other  honest  men,  began  the  inter- 
view with  Mr.  Twist  by  warmly  congratulating  him, 
when  he  heard  what  he  had  come  for,  on  his  taste  in 
wards. 

Mr.  Twist  received  this  a  little  coldly,  and  said  it 
was  not  a  matter  of  taste  but  of  necessity.  The  Miss 
Twinklers  were  orphans,  and  he  had  been  asked — ^he 
cleared  his  throat — asked  by  their  relatives,  by,  in 
fact,  their  uncle  in  England,  to  take  over  their  guard- 
ianship and  see  that  they  came  to  no  harm. 

The  lawyer  nodded  intelligently,  and  said  that 
if  a  man  had  wards  at  all  they  might  as  well  be  cute 
wards. 

Mr.  Twist  didn't  like  this  either,  and  said  briefly 
that  he  had  had  no  choice. 

The  lawyer  said,  "Quite  so.  Quite  so,"  and  con- 
tinued to  look  at  him  intelligently. 

Mr.  Twist  then  explained  that  he  had  come  to  him 
rather  than,  as  might  have  been  more  natural,  to  the 
solicitor  who  had  arranged  the  purchase  of  the  cottage 
because  this  was  a  private  and  personal  matter 

* 'Quite  so.  Quite  so,"  interrupted  the  lawyer,  with 
really  almost  too  much  intelligence. 

Mr.  Twist  felt  the  excess  of  it,  and  tried  to  look 
dignified,  but  the  lawyer  was  bent  on  being  friendly 
and  frank.  Friendliness  was  natural  to  him  when 
visited  for  the  first  time  by  a  new  client,  and  that  there 
should  be  frankness  between  lawyers  and  clients  he 
considered  essential.     If,  he  held,  the  chent  wouldn't 


254        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

be  frank,  then  the  lawyer  must  be;  and  he  must  go  on 
being  so  till  the  client  came  out  of  his  reserve. 

Mr.  Twist,  however,  was  so  obstinate  in  his  reserve 
that  the  lawyer  cheerfully  and  unhesitatingly  jumped 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  entourage  must  have  some 
very  weak  spots  about  it  somewhere. 

"There's  another  way  out  of  it  of  course,  Mr.  Twist," 
he  said,  when  he  had  done  rapidly  describing  the  dif- 
ferent steps  to  be  taken.  There  were  not  many  steps. 
The  process  of  turning  oneself  into  a  guardian  was  sur- 
prisingly simple  and  swift. 

**Out  of  it?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  his  spectacles  looking 
very  big  and  astonished.     **Out  of  what?" 

*'Out  of  your  little  difficulty.  I  wonder  it  hasn't 
occurred  to  you.     Upon  my  word  now,  I  do  wonder." 

"But  I'm  not  in  any  little   diff "  began   Mr. 

Twist. 

"The  elder  of  these  two  girls,  now " 

"There  isn't  an  elder,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Come,  come,"  said  the  lawyer  patiently,  waiting  for 
him  to  be  sensible. 

"There  isn't  an  elder,"  repeated  Mr.  Twist. 
''They're  twins." 

"Twins,  are  they?  Well  I  must  say  we  manage  to 
match  up  our  twins  better  than  that  over  here.  But 
come  now — hasn't  it  occurred  to  you  you  might  marry 
one  of  them,  and  so  become  quite  naturally  related  to 
them  both?" 

Mr.  Twist's  spectacles  seemed  to  grow  gigantic. 

"Marry  one  of  them?"  he  repeated,  his  mouth  help- 
lessly opening. 

"Yep,"  said  the  lawyer,  giving  him  a  lead  in  free-and- 
easiness. 

"Look  here,"  said  Mr.  Twist  suddenly  gathering  his 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        ^55 

mouth  together,  "cut  that  line  of  joke  out.  I'm  here 
on  serious  business.  I  haven't  come  to  be  facetious^ 
Least  of  all  about  those  children " 

*'Quite  so,  quite  so,"  interrupted  the  lawyer  pleas- 
antly. "Children,  you  call  them.  How  old  are  they.^ 
Seventeen?  My  wife  was  sixteen  when  we  married. 
Oh  quite  so,  quite  so.  Certainly.  By  all  means. 
Well  then,  they're  to  be  your  wards.  And  you  don't 
want  it  known  how  recently  they've  become  your 
wards " 

"I  didn't  say  that,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Quite  so,  quite  so.  But  it's  your  wish,  isn't  it. 
The  relationship  is  to  look  as  grass-grown  as  possible. 
Well,  I  shall  be  dumb  of  course,  but  most  things  get  into 

the  press  here.     Let  me  see "     He  pulled  a  sheet 

of  paper  towards  him  and  took  up  his  fountain  pen. 
"Just  oblige  me  with  particulars.  Date  of  birth. 
Place  of  birth.     Parentage " 

He  looked  up  ready  to  write,  waiting  for  the  answers. 

None  came. 

"I  can't  tell  you  off  hand,"  said  Mr.  Twist  presently, 
his  forehead  puckered. 

"Ah,"  said  the  lawyer,  laying  down  his  pen.  "Quite 
so.     Not  known  your  young  friends  long  enough  yet." 

"I've  known  them  quite  long  enough,"  said  Mr. 
Twist  stiffly,  "but  we  happen  to  have  found  more 
alive  topics  of  conversation  than  dates  and  parents." 

"Ah.     Parents  not  alive." 

"Unfortunately  they  are  not.  If  they  were,  these 
poor  children  wouldn't  be  knocking  about  in  a  strange 
country." 

"Where  would  they  be?"  asked  the  lawyer,  balancing 
his  pen  across  his  forefinger. 

Mr.  Twist  looked  at  him  very  straight.     Vividly 


^56        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

he  remembered  his  mother's  peculiar  horror  when  he 
told  her  the  girls  he  was  throwing  away  his  home  life 
for  and  breaking  her  heart  over  were  Germans.  It  had 
acted  upon  her  like  the  last  straw.  And  since  then  he 
had  felt  everywhere,  with  every  one  he  talked  to,  in 
every  newspaper  he  read,  the  same  strong  hostility  to 
Germans,  so  much  stronger  than  when  he  left  America 
the  year  before. 

Mr.  Twist  began  to  perceive  that  he  had  been  impet- 
uous in  this  matter  of  the  guardianship.  He  hadn't 
considered  it  enough.  He  suddenly  saw  innumerable 
difficulties  for  the  twins  and  for  The  Open  Arms  if  it 
was  known  it  was  run  by  Germans.  Better  abandon 
the  guardianship  idea  than  that  such  difficulties  should 
arise.  He  hadn't  thought;  he  hadn't  had  time  properly 
to  think;  he  had  been  so  hustled  and  busy  the  last  few 
days.     .     .     . 

"They  come  from  England,"  he  said,  looking  at  the 
lawyer  very  straight. 

"Ah,"  said  the  lawyer. 

Mr.  Twist  wasn't  going  to  lie  about  the  twins,  but 
merely,  by  evading,  he  hoped  to  put  off  the  day  when 
their  nationality  would  be  known.  Perhaps  it  never 
would  be  known;  or  if  known,  known  later  on  when 
everybody,  as  everybody  must  who  knew  them,  loved 
them  for  themselves  and  accordingly  wouldn't  care. 

"Quite  so,"  said  the  lawyer  again,  nodding.  "I 
asked  because  I  overheard  them  talking  the  other 
day  as  they  passed  through  the  hall  of  your  hotel. 
They  were  talking  about  a  canary.  The  r  in  the 
word  seemed  a  little  rough.  Not  quite  English,  Mr. 
Twist?     Not  quite  American?" 

"Not  quite,"  agreed  Mr.  Twist.  "They've  been  a 
good  deal  abroad." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        257 

"Quite  so.     At  school,  no  doubt." 

He  was  silent  a  moment,  intelligently  balancing  his 
pen  on  his  forefinger. 

"Then  these  particulars,"  he  went  on,  looking  up  at 
Mr.  Twist, — "could  you  let  me  have  them  soon?  I 
tell  you  what.  You're  in  a  hurry  to  Bx  this.  I'll 
call  round  to-night  at  the  hotel,  and  get  them  direct 
from  your  young  friends.  Save  time.  And  make  me 
acquainted  with  a  pair  of  charming  girls." 

"  No,"  said  Mr.  Twist.  He  got  on  to  his  feet  and  held 
out  his  hand.  "Not  to-night.  We're  engaged  to- 
night. To-morrow  will  be  soon  enough.  I'll  send 
round.  I'll  let  you  know.  I  believe  I'm  going  to 
think  it  over  a  bit.  There  isn't  any  such  terrible  hurry, 
anyhow." 

"There  isn't?    I  understood " 

"I  mean,  a  day  or  two  more  or  less  don't  figure  out 
at  much  in  the  long  run." 

"Quite  so,  quite  so,"  said  the  lawyer,  getting  up  too. 
"Well,  I'm  always  at  your  service,  at  any  time."  And 
he  shook  hands  heartily  with  Mr.  Twist  and  politely 
opened  the  door  for  him. 

Then  he  went  back  to  his  writing-table  more  con- 
vinced than  ever  that  there  was  something  very  weak 
somewhere  about  the  entourage. 

As  for  Mr.  Twist,  he  perceived  he  had  been  a  fool. 
Why  had  he  gone  to  the  lawyer  at  all?  Why  not 
simply  have  announced  to  the  world  that  he  was  the 
Twinkler  guardian?  The  twins  themselves  would 
have  believed  it  if  he  had  come  in  one  day  and  said  it 
was  settled,  and  nobody  outside  would  ever  have 
dreamed  of  questioning  it.  After  all,  you  couldn't  see 
if  a  man  was  a  guardian  or  not  just  by  looking  at  him. 
Well^  he  would  do  no  more  about  it,  it  was  much  too 


258        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

diflScult.  Bother  it.  Let  Mrs.  Bilton  go  on  supposing 
he  was  the  legal  guardian  of  her  charges.  Anyway 
he  had  all  the  intentions  of  a  guardian.  What  a  fool 
he  had  been  to  go  to  the  lawyer.  Curse  that  lawyer. 
Now  he  knew,  however  distinctly  and  frequently  he, 
Mr.  Twist,  might  say  he  was  the  Twinkler  guardian, 
that  he  wasn't. 

It  harassed  Mr.  Twist  to  perceive,  as  he  did  perceive 
with  clearness,  that  he  had  been  a  fool;  but  the  twins, 
when  he  told  them  that  evening  that  owing  to  tech- 
nical difficulties,  with  the  details  of  which  he  wouldn't 
trouble  them,  the  guardianship  was  off,  were  pleased. 

"We  want  to  be  bound  to  you,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
her  eyes  very  soft  and  her  voice  very  gentle,  "only  by 
ties  of  affection  and  gratitude." 

And  Anna-Rose,  turning  red,  opened  her  mouth  as 
though  she  were  going  to  say  something  handsome  like 
that  too,  but  seemed  unable  after  all  to  get  it  out,  and 
only  said,  rather  inaudibly,  "Yes." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

YET  another  harassing  experience  awaited  Mr. 
Twist  before  the  end  of  that  week. 
It  had  been  from  the  first  his  anxious  con- 
cern that  nothing  should  occur  at  the  CosmopoHtan 
to  get  his  party  under  a  cloud;  yet  it  did  get  under 
a  cloud,  and  on  the  very  last  afternoon,  too,  before 
Mrs.  Bilton's  arrival.  Only  twenty-four  hours  more 
and  her  snowy-haired  respectability  would  have  spread 
over  the  twins  like  a  white  wing.  They  would  have 
been  safe.  His  party  would  have  been  unassailable. 
But  no;  those  Twinklers,  in  spite  of  his  exhortation 
whenever  he  had  a  minute  left  to  exhort  in,  couldn't, 
it  seemed,  refrain  from  twinkling, — the  word  in  Mr. 
Twist's  mind  covered  the  whole  of  their  easy  friend- 
liness, their  flow  of  language,  their  affable  desire  to 
explain. 

He  had  kept  them  with  him  as  much  as  he  could,  and 
luckily  the  excited  interest  they  took  in  the  progress  of 
the  inn  made  them  happy  to  hang  about  it  most  of  the 
time  of  the  delicate  and  dangerous  week  before  Mrs. 
Bilton  came;  but  they  too  had  things  to  do, — shopping 
in  Acapulco  choosing  the  sea-blue  linen  frocks  and 
muslin  caps  and  aprons  in  which  they  were  to  wait  at 
tea,  and  buying  the  cushions  and  flower-pots  and 
canary  that  came  under  the  general  heading,  in  Anna- 
Rose's  speech,  of  feminine  touches.  So  they  some- 
times left  him;  and  he  never  saw  them  go  without  a 
qualm. 

259 


260        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Mind  and  not  say  anything  to  anybody  about  this, 
won't  you,"  he  would  say  hastily,  making  a  compre- 
hensive gesture  towards  the  cottage  as  they  went. 

"Of  course  we  won't." 

"I  meant,  nobody  is  to  know  what  it's  really  going  to 
be.  They're  to  think  it's  just  a  pied-d-terre.  It  would 
most  ruin  my  advertisement  scheme  if  they " 

"But  of  course  we  won't.  Have  we  ever? "  the  twins 
would  answer,  looking  very  smug  and  sure  of  them- 
selves. 

"No.    Not  yet.     But " 

And  the  hustled  man  would  plunge  again  into  tech- 
nicalities with  whichever  expert  was  at  that  moment 
with  him,  leaving  the  twins,  as  he  needs  must,  to  God 
and  their  own  discretion. 

Discretion,  he  already  amply  knew,  was  not  a  Twink- 
ler  characteristic.  But  the  week  passed,  Mrs.  Bilton's 
arrival  grew  near,  and  nothing  had  happened.  It  was 
plain  to  the  watchful  Mr.  Twist,  from  the  pleasant 
looks  of  the  other  guests  when  the  twins  went  in  and 
out  of  the  restaurant  to  meals,  that  nothing  had 
happened.  His  heart  grew  hghter.  On  the  last 
afternoon,  when  Mrs.  Bilton  was  actually  due  next 
day,  his  heart  was  quite  light,  and  he  saw  them  leave 
him  to  go  back  and  rest  at  the  hotel,  because  they  were 
tired  by  the  accumulated  standing  about  of  the  week, 
altogether  unconcernedly. 

The  attitude  of  the  Cosmopolitan  guests  towards 
the  twins  was,  indeed,  one  of  complete  benevolence. 
They  didn't  even  mind  the  canary.  Who  would  not 
be  indulgent  towards  two  such  sweet  little  girls  and 
their  pet  bird,  even  if  it  did  sing  all  day  and  most  of  the 
night  without  stopping?  The  Twinkler  girls  were  like 
two  httle  bits  of  snapped-off  sunUght,  or  bits  of  white 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLmiBUS        261 

blossom  blowing  in  and  out  of  the  hotel  in  their  shining 
youth,  and  it  was  impossible  not  to  regard  them  indul- 
gently. But  if  the  guests  were  indulgent,  they  were 
also  inquisitive.  Everybody  knew  who  Mr.  Twist 
was;  who,  however,  were  the  Twinklers?  Were  they 
relations  of  his.^^    Protegees  ?     Charges? 

The  social  column  of  the  Acapulco  daily  paper,  from 
which  information  as  to  new  arrivals  was  usually  got, 
had,  as  we  know,  in  its  embarrassment  at  being  ignor- 
ant, to  take  refuge  in  French,  because  French  may  so 
easily  be  supposed  to  mean  something.  The  paper 
had  httle  knowledge  of,  but  much  confidence  in,  French. 
Entourage  had  seemed  to  it  as  good  a  word  as  any  other, 
as  indeed  did  clientele.  It  had  hesitated  between  the 
two,  but  finally  chose  entourage  because  there  happened 
to  be  no  accent  in  its  stock  of  type.  The  Cosmopolitan 
guests  were  amused  at  the  word,  and  though  inquisitive 
were  altogether  amiable;  and,  until  the  last  afternoon, 
only  the  manager  didn't  like  the  Twinklers.  He  didn't 
like  them  because  of  the  canary.  His  sympathies  had 
been  ahenated  from  the  Miss  Twinklers  the  moment 
he  heard  through  the  chambermaid  that  they  had  tied 
the  heavy  canary  cage  on  to  the  hanging  electric  fight 
in  their  bedroom.  He  said  nothing,  of  course.  One 
doesn't  say  anything  if  one  is  an  hotel  manager,  until 
the  unique  and  final  moment  when  one  says  every- 
thing. 

On  the  last  afternoon  before  Mrs.  Bilton's  advent 
the  twins,  tired  of  standing  about  for  days  at  the  cottage 
and  in  shops,  appeared  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel  and  sat 
down  to  rest.  They  didn't  go  to  their  room  to  rest 
because  they  didn't  feel  inclined  for  the  canary,  and 
they  sat  down  very  happily  in  the  comfortable  rocking- 
ehairs  with  which  the  big  haU  abounded,  and,  propping 


262        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

their  dusty  feet  on  the  lower  bar  of  a  small  table,  with 
friendly  and  interested  eyes  they  observed  the  other 
guests. 

The  other  guests  also  observed  them. 

It  was  the  first  time  the  entourage  had  appeared  with- 
out its  companion,  and  the  other  guests  were  dying  to 
know  details  about  it.  It  hadn't  been  sitting  in  the  hall 
five  minutes  before  a  genial  old  gentleman  caught  Anna- 
Felicitas's  friendly  eye  and  instantly  drew  up  his  chair. 

"Uncle  gone  off  by  himself  to-day?"  he  asked;  for 
he  was  of  the  party  in  the  hotel  which  inclined,  in  spite 
of  the  marked  difference  in  profiles,  to  the  relationship 
theory,  and  he  made  a  shot  at  the  relationship  being 
that  of  uncle. 

"We  haven't  got  an  uncle  nearer  than  England," 
said  Anna-Felicitas  affably. 

"And  we  only  got  him  by  accident,"  said  Anna-Rose, 
equally  affably. 

"It  was  an  unfortunate  accident,"  said  Anna-Felici- 
tas, considering  her  memories. 

"Indeed,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "Indeed.  How 
was  that?" 

"By  the  usual  method,  if  an  uncle  isn't  a  blood 
imcle,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "We  happened  to  have  a 
marriageable  aunt,  and  he  married  her.  So  we  have  to 
have  him." 

"It  was  sheer  bad  luck,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  again 
brooding  on  that  distant  image. 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "Just  bad  luck.  He  might 
so  easily  have  married  some  one  else's  aunt.  But  no. 
His  roving  glance  must  needs  go  and  fall  on  ours." 

"Indeed,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "Indeed."  And 
he  ruminated  on  this,  with  an  affectionate  eye — he 
was  affectionate — resting  in  turn  on  each  Anna. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        263 

"Then  Mr.  Twist,"  he  went  on  presently — "we  all 
know  him  of  course — a  public  benefactor " 

"Yes,  isn't  he,"  said  Anna-Rose  radiantly. 

"A  boon  to  the  breakfast-table " 

"Yes,  isn't  he,"  said  Anna-Rose  again,  all  asparkle. 
"He  is  so  pleasant  at  breakfast." 

"Then  he — Mr.  Twist — Teapot  Twist  we  call  him 
where  I  live ' 

"Teapot  Twist,?"  said  Anna-Rose.  "I  think  that's 
irreverent." 

"Not  at  all.  It's  a  pet  name.  A  sign  of  our  affec- 
tion and  gratitude.     Then  he  isn't  your  uncle?" 

"We  haven't  got  a  real  uncle  nearer  than  heaven," 
said  Anna-Felicitas,  her  cheek  on  her  hand,  dreamily 
reconstructing  the  image  of  Onkel  Col. 

"Indeed,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "Indeed."  And 
he  ruminated  on  this  too,  his  thirsty  heart — he  had  a 
thirsty  heart,  and  found  difficulty  in  slaking  it  because 
of  his  wife — very  indulgent  toward  the  twins. 

Then  he  said:    "That's  a  long  way  off." 

"What  is.f^"  asked  Anna-Rose. 

"The  place  your  uncle's  in." 

"Not  too  far  really,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  softly. 
"He's  safe  there.  He  was  very  old,  and  was  difficult 
to  look  after.  Why,  he  got  there  at  last  through  his 
own  carelessness." 

"Indeed,"  said  the  old  gentleman. 

"Sheer  carelessness,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Indeed,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "How  was 
that?" 

"Well,  you  see  where  we  lived  they  didn't  have  elec- 
tric light,"  began  Anna-Rose,  "and  one  night — the 
the  night  he  went  to  heaven— he  put  the  petroleum 
lamp " 


264        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

And  she  was  about  to  relate  that  dreadful  story  of 
Onkle  Col's  end  which  has  already  been  described  in 
these  pages  as  unfit  for  anywhere  but  an  appendix,  for 
time  had  blunted  her  feelings,  when  Anna-Felicitas  put 
out  a  beseeching  hand  and  stopped  her.  Even  after 
all  these  years  Anna-Felicitas  couldn't  bear  to  remem- 
ber Onkle  CoFs  end.  It  had  haunted  her  childhood. 
It  had  licked  about  her  dreams  in  leaping  tongues  of 
flame.  And  it  wasn't  only  tongues  of  flame.  There 
were  circumstances  connected  with  it.  .  .  .  Only 
quite  recently,  since  the  war  had  damped  down  lesser 
horrors,  had  she  got  rid  of  it.  She  could  at  least  now 
talk  of  him  calmly,  and  also  speculate  with  pleasure  on 
the  probable  aspect  of  Onkle  Col  in  glory,  but  she  still 
couldn't  bear  to  hear  the  details  of  his  end. 

At  this  point  an  elderly  lady  of  the  spare  and  active 
type,  very  upright  and  much  wrinkled,  that  America 
seems  so  freely  to  produce,  came  down  the  stairs;  and 
seeing  the  twins  talking  to  the  old  gentleman,  crossed 
straight  over  and  sat  down  briskly  next  to  them  smiling 
benevolently. 

"Well,  if  Mr.  Ridding  can  talk  to  you  I  guess  so  can 
I,"  she  said,  pulling  her  knitting  out  of  a  brocaded  bag 
and  nodding  and  smiling  at  the  group. 

She  was  knitting  socks  for  the  Allied  armies  in  France 
the  next  winter,  but  it  being  warm  just  then  in  Cali- 
fornia they  were  cotton  socks  because  wool  made  her 
hands  too  hot. 

The  twins  were  all  polite,  reciprocal  smiles. 

"I'm  just  crazy  to  hear  about  you,"  said  the  brisk  lady, 
knitting  with  incredible  energy,  while  her  smiles  flicked 
over  everybody.  "You're  fresh  from  Europe,  aren't 
you?  What  say?  Quite  fresh?  My,  aren't  you  cute 
little  things.     Thinking  of  making  a  long  stay  in  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        265 

States?  What  say?  For  the  rest  of  your  lives?  Why 
now,  I  call  that  just  splendid.  Parents  coming  out 
West  soon  too?  What  say?  Prevented?  Well,  I 
guess  they  won't  let  themselves  be  prevented  long.  Mr. 
Twist  looking  after  you  meanwhile?  What  say?  There 
isn't  any  meanwhile?  Well,  I  don't  quite — Mr.  Twist 
your  uncle,  or  cousin?  What  say?  No  relation  at  all? 
H'm,  h'm.  No  relation  at  all,  is  he.  Well,  I  guess  he's 
an  old  friend  of  your  parents,  then.  What  say?  They 
didn't  know  him?  H'm,  h'm.  They  didn't  know  him, 
didn't  they.  Well,  I  don't  quite — What  say?  But  you 
know  him?    Yes,  yes,  so  I  see.     H'm,  h'm.    I  don't 

quite "     Her  needles  flew  in  and  out,  and  her  ball 

of  cotton  rolled  on  to  the  floor  in  her  surprise. 

Anna-Rose  got  up  and  fetched  it  for  her  before  the 
old  gentleman,  who  was  gazing  with  thirsty  apprecia- 
tion at  Anna-Felicitas,  could  struggle  out  of  his  chair. 

"You  see,"  explained  Anna-Felicitas,  taking  advan- 
tage of  the  silence  that  had  fallen  on  the  lady,  "Mr. 
Twist,  regarded  as  a  man,  is  old,  but  regarded  as  a  friend 
he  is  new." 

"Brand  new,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"H'm,  h'm,"  said  the  lady,  knitting  faster  than  ever, 
and  looking  first  at  one  twin  and  then  at  the  other. 
"H'm,  h'm,  h'm.     Brand  new,  is  he.     Well,  I  don't 

quite "     Her  smiles  had  now  to  struggle  with  the 

uncertainty  and  doubt,  and  were  weakening  visibly. 

"  Say  now,  where  did  you  meet  Teapot  Twist?  "  asked 
the  old  gentleman,  who  was  surprised  too,  but  remained 
quite  benevolent  owing  to  his  affectionate  heart  and  his 
not  being  a  lady. 

"We  met  Mr.  Twist,"  said  Anna-Rose,  who  objected 
to  this  way  of  alluding  to  him,  "  on  the  steamer." 

"Not  before?    You  didn't  meet  Mr.  Twist  before  the 


266        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

steamer?''  exclaimed  the  lady,  the  last  of  her  smiles 
flickering  out.  *'Not  before  the  steamer,  didn't  you. 
Just  a  steamship  acquaintance.  Parents  never  seen 
him.     H'm,  h'm,  h'm." 

"We  would  have  met  him  before  if  we  could,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas  earnestly. 

"I  should  thmk  so,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "It  has  been 
the  great  retrospective  loss  of  our  lives  meeting  him  so 
late  in  them." 

"Why  now,"  said  the  old  gentleman  smiling,  "I 
shouldn't  call  it  so  particularly  late  in  them." 

But  the  knitting  lady  didn't  smile  at  all,  and  sat  up 
very  straight  and  said  "H'm,  h'm,  h'm"  to  her  flashmg 
needles  as  they  flew  in  and  out;  for  not  only  was  she  in 
doubt  now  about  the  cute  httle  things,  but  she  also 
regretted,  on  behalf  of  the  old  gentleman's  wife  who 
was  a  friend  of  hers,  the  alert  interest  of  his  manner. 
He  sat  there  so  very  much  awake.  With  his  wife  he 
never  seemed  awake  at  all.  Up  to  now  she  had  not  seen 
him  except  with  his  wife. 

"You  mustn't  run  away  with  the  idea  that  we're 
younger  than  we  really  are,"  Anna-Rose  said  to  the  old 
gentleman. 

"Why  no,  I  won't,"  he  answered  with  a  liveliness 
that  deepened  the  knitting  lady's  regret  on  behalf  of 
his  wife.  "When  I  run  away  you  bet  it  won't  be  with 
an  idea." 

And  he  chuckled.  He  was  quite  rosy  in  the  face,  and 
chuckled;  he  whom  she  knew  only  as  a  quiet  man  with 
no  chuckle  in  him.  And  wasn't  what  he  had  just  said 
very  like  what  the  French  call  a  double  entendre  ?  She 
hadn't  a  husband  herself,  but  if  she  had  she  would  wish 
him  to  be  at  least  as  quiet  when  away  from  her  as  when 
with  her,  and  at  least  as  free  from  double  entendres- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        267 

At  least.  Really  more.  "H'm,  h'm,  h'm,"  she  said, 
clicking  her  needles  and  looking  first  at  the  twins  and 
then  at  the  old  gentleman. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  crossed  the  Atlantic  quite 
alone,  you  two.^^"  she  asked,  in  order  to  prevent  his 
continuing  on  these  remarkable  and  unusual  lines  of 
badinage. 

"Quite,"  said  Anna-FeHcitas. 

"That  is  to  say,  we  had  Mr.  Twist  of  course,"  said 
Anna-Rose. 

"Once  we  had  got  him,"  amended  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  the  knitting  lady,  "so  you  say. 
H'm,  h'm,  h'm.  Once  you  had  got  him.  I  don't 
quite " 

"Well,  I  call  you  a  pair  of  fine  high-spirited  girls," 
said  the  old  gentleman  heartily,  interrupting  in  his 
turn,  "and  all  I  can  say  is  I  wish  I  had  been  on  that 
boat." 

"Here's  Mrs.  Ridding,"  said  the  knitting  lady 
quickly,  relief  in  her  voice;  whereupon  he  suddenly 
grew  quiet.  "My,  Mrs.  Ridding,"  she  added  when  the 
lady  drew  within  speaking  distance,  "you  do  look  as 
though  you  needed  a  rest." 

Mrs.  Ridding,  the  wife  of  the  old  gentleman,  Mr, 
Ridding,  had  been  approaching  slowly  for  some  time 
from  behind.  She  had  been  out  on  the  verandah  since 
lunch,  trying  to  recover  from  it.  That  was  the  one 
drawback  to  meals,  she  considered,  that  they  required 
so  much  recovering  from;  and  the  nicer  they  were  the 
longer  it  took.  The  meals  at  the  Cosmopolitan  were 
particularly  nice,  and  really  all  one's  time  was  taken  up 
getting  over  them. 

She  was  a  lady  whose  figure  seemed  to  be  all  meals. 
The  old  gentleman  had  married  her  in  her  youth,  when 


268        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

she  hadn't  had  time  to  have  had  so  many.  He  and  she 
were  then  the  same  age,  and  unfortunately  hadn't  gone 
on  bemg  the  same  age  since.  It  had  wrecked  his  Hfe, 
this  inability  of  his  wife  to  stay  as  young  and  new  as 
himself.  He  wanted  a  young  wife,  and  the  older  he 
got  in  years — ^his  heart  very  awkwardly  retained  its 
early  freshness — the  younger  he  wanted  her;  and,  in- 
stead, the  older  he  got  the  older  his  wife  got  too.  Also 
the  less  new.  The  old  gentleman  felt  the  whole  thing 
was  a  dreadful  mistake.  Why  should  he  have  to  be 
married  to  this  old  lady?  Never  in  his  life  had  he 
wanted  to  marry  old  ladies;  and  he  thought  it  very  hard 
that  at  an  age  when  he  most  appreciated  bright  youth 
he  should  be  forced  to  spend  his  precious  years,  his 
crowning  years  when  his  mind  had  attained  wisdom 
while  his  heart  retained  freshness,  stranded  with  an  old 
lady  of  costly  habits  and  inordinate  bulk  just  because 
years  ago  he  had  fallen  in  love  with  a  chance  pretty  girl. 

He  struggled  politely  out  of  his  chair  on  seeing  her. 
The  twins,  impressed  by  such  venerable  abundance, 
got  up  too. 

"Albert,  if  you  try  to  move  too  quick  you'll  crick 
your  back  again,"  said  Mrs.  Ridding  in  a  monotonous 
voice,  letting  herself  down  carefully  and  a  little  breath- 
lessly on  to  the  edge  of  a  chair  that  didn't  rock,  and 
fanning  herself  with  a  small  fan  she  carried  on  the  end 
of  a  massive  gold  chain.  Her  fatigued  eyes  explored 
the  twins  while  she  spoke. 

"I  can't  get  Mr.  Ridding  to  remember  that  we're 
neither  of  us  as  young  as  we  were,"  she  went  on,  ad- 
dressing the  knitting  lady  but  with  her  eyes  continuing 
to  explore  the  twins. 

They  naturally  thought  she  was  speaking  to  them, 
and  Anna-Felicitas  said  politely,  "Really?"  and  Anna- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        269 

Rose,  feeling  she  too  ought  to  make  some  comment, 
said,  "Isn't  that  very  unusual?" 

Aunt  Alice  always  said,  "Isn't  that  very  unusual?" 
when  she  didn't  know  what  else  to  say,  and  it  worked 
beautifully,  because  then  the  other  person  launched  into 
affirmations  or  denials  with  the  reasons  for  them,  and 
was  quite  happy. 

But  Mrs.  Ridding  only  stared  at  the  twins  heavily  and 
in  silence. 

"Because,"  explained  Anna-Rose,  who  thought  the 
old  lady  didn't  quite  follow,  "nobody  ever  is.  So  that 
it  must  be  difficult  not  to  remember  it." 

Mr.  Ridding  too  was  silent,  but  that  was  because  of 
his  wife.  It  was  quite  untrue  to  say  that  he  forgot, 
seeing  that  she  was  constantly  reminding  him.  "Old 
stranger,"  he  thought  resentfully,  as  he  carefully  ar- 
ranged a  cushion  behind  her  back.  He  didn't  like  her 
back.  Why  should  he  have  to  pay  bills  for  putting 
expensive  clothes  on  it?  He  didn't  want  to.  It  was 
all  a  dreadful  mistake. 

"You're  the  Twinkler  girls,"  said  the  old  lady 
abruptly. 

They  made  polite  gestures  of  agreement. 

The  knitting  lady  knitted  vigorously,  sitting  up  very 
straight  and  saying  nothing,  with  a  look  on  her  face 
of  disclaiming  every  responsibility. 

"Where  does  your  family  come  from?"  was  the  next 
question. 

This  was  unexpected.  The  twins  had  no  desire  to 
talk  of  Pomerania.  They  hadn't  wanted  to  talk  about 
Pomerania  once  since  the  war  began;  and  they  felt  very 
distinctly  in  their  bones  that  America,  though  she  was 
a  neutral,  didn't  like  Germany  any  more  than  the  bel- 
ligerents did.     It  had  been  their  intention  to  arrange 


270        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIMBUS 

together  the  line  they  would  take  if  asked  questions  of 
this  sort,  but  life  had  been  so  full  and  so  exciting  since 
their  arrival  that  they  had  forgotten  to. 

Anna-Rose  found  herself  unable  to  say  anything  at 
all.  Anna-Felicitas,  therefore,  observing  that  Christo- 
pher was  unnerved,  plunged  in. 

"Our  family,"  she  said  gently,  "can  hardly  be  said 
to  come  so  much  as  to  have  been." 

The  old  lady  thought  this  over,  her  lustreless  eyes  on 
Anna-Felicitas's  face. 

The  Ivnitting  lady  clicked  away  very  fast,  content  to 
leave  the  management  of  the  Twinklers  in  more  compe- 
tent hands. 

"How's  that.?"  asked  the  old  lady,  finally  deciding 
that  she  hadn't  understood. 

"It's  extinct,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Except  us. 
That  is,  in  the  direct  line." 

The  old  lady  was  a  little  impressed  by  this,  direct 
lines  not  being  so  numerous  or  so  clear  in  America  as  in 
some  other  countries. 

"You  mean  you  two  are  the  only  Twinklers  left.^^" 
she  asked. 

"The  only  ones  left  that  matter,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 
"There  are  branches  of  Twinklers  still  existing,  I  be- 
lieve, but  they're  so  unimportant  that  we  don't  know 
them." 

"Mere  twigs,"  said  Anna-Rose,  recovering  her  nerves 
on  seeing  Anna-Felicitas  handle  the  situation  so  skil- 
fully; and  her  nose  unconsciously  gave  a  slight  Junker 
lift. 

"Haven't  you  got  any  parents?"  asked  the  old  lady. 

"We  used  to  have,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  flushing, 
afraid  that  her  darling  mother  was  going  to  be  asked 
about. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        271 

The  old  gentleman  gave  a  sudden  chuckle.  "Why 
yes,"  he  said,  forgetting  his  wife's  presence  for  an 
instant,  "I  guess  you  had  them  once,  or  I  don't  see 
how " 

"Albert,"  said  his  wife. 

"We  are  the  sole  surviving  examples  of  the  direct 
line  of  Twinklers,"  said  Anna-Rose,  now  quite  herseK 
and  ready  to  give  Columbus  a  hand.  "There's  just 
us.  And  we — "  she  paused  a  moment,  and  then 
plunged — "we  come  from  England." 

"Do  you.?"  said  the  old  lady.  "Now  I  shouldn't 
have  said  that.  I  can't  say  just  why,  but  I  shouldn't^ 
Should  you.  Miss  Heap.f^" 

"I  shouldn't  say  a  good  many  things,  Mrs.  Ridding," 
said  Miss  Heap  enigmatically,  her  needles  flying. 

"It's  because  we've  been  abroad  a  great  deal  with  our 
parents,  I  expect,"  said  Anna-Rose  rather  quickly. 
"I  daresay  it  has  left  its  mark  on  us." 

"Everything  leaves  its  mark  on  one,'*  observed  Anna- 
Felicitas  pleasantly. 

"Ah,"  said  the  old  lady.  "I  know  what  it  is  now. 
It's  the  foreign  r.  You've  picked  it  up.  Haven't  they. 
Miss  Heap." 

"I  shouldn't  like  to  say  what  they  haven't  picked 
up,  Mrs.  Ridding,"  said  Miss  Heap,  again  enigmatically. 

"I'm  afraid  we  have,"  said  Anna-Rose,  turning  red. 
"We've  been  told  that  before.  It  seems  to  stick,  once 
one  has  picked  it  up." 

And  the  old  gentleman  muttered  that  everything 
stuck  once  one  had  picked  it  up,  and  looked  resentfully 
at  his  wife. 

She  moved  her  slow  eyes  round,  and  let  them  rest  on 
him  a  moment. 

"Albert,  if  you  talk  so  much  you  won't  be  able  to 


272        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

sleep  to-night,''  she  said.  "I  can't  get  Mr.  Ridding  to 
remember  we've  got  to  be  careful  at  our  age,"  she  added 
to  the  knitting  lady. 

"You  seem  to  be  bothered  by  your  memory,"  said 
Anna-Rose  poUtely,  addressing  the  old  gentleman. 
**Have  you  ever  tried  making  notes  on  little  bits  of 
paper  of  the  things  you  have  to  remember?  I  think 
you  would  proba,bly  be  all  right  then.  Uncle  Arthur 
used  to  do  that.  Or  rather  he  made  Aimt  Alice  do  it 
for  him,  and  put  them  where  he  would  see  them." 

"Uncle  Arthur,"  explained  Anna-Felicitas  to  the 
old  lady,  "is  an  uncle  of  ours.  The  one,"  she  said, 
turning  to  the  old  gentleman,  "we  were  just  telling 
you  about,  who  so  unfortunately  insisted  on  marrying 
our  aunt.  Uncle,  that  is,  by  courtesy,"  she  added, 
turning  to  the  old  lady,  "not  by  blood." 

The  old  lady's  eyes  moved  from  one  twin  to  the  other 
as  each  one  spoke,  but  she  said  nothing. 

"But  Aunt  Alice,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "is  our  genuine 
aunt.  Well,  I  was  going  to  tell  you,"  she  continued 
briskly,  addressing  the  old  gentleman.  "There  used 
to  be  things  Uncle  Arthur  had  to  do  every  day  and  every 
week,  but  still  he  had  to  be  reminded  of  them  each  time, 
and  Aunt  Alice  had  a  whole  set  of  the  regular  ones  writ- 
ten out  on  bits  of  cardboard,  and  brought  them  out  in 
turn.  The  Monday  morning  one  was :  Wind  the  Clock, 
and  the  Sunday  morning  one  was:  Take  your  Hot  Bath, 
and  the  Saturday  evening  one  was:  Remember  your 
Pill.  And  there  was  one  brought  in  regularly  every 
morning  with  his  shaving  water  and  stuck  in  his  looking- 
glass:  Put  on  your  Abdominable  Belt." 

The  knitting  needles  paused  an  instant. 

"Yes,"  Anna-Felicitas  joined  in,  interested  by  these 
recollections,  her  long  limbs  sunk  in  her  chair  in  a  posi- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        273 

tion  of  great  ease  and  comfort,  "and  it  seemed  to  us  so 
fmmy  for  him  to  have  to  be  reminded  to  put  on  what 
was  really  a  part  of  his  clothes  every  day,  that  once 
we  wrote  a  sHp  of  our  own  for  him  and  left  it  on  his 
dressing-table:  Don't  forget  your  Trousers."- 

The  knitting  needles  paused  again.     • 

"But  the  results  of  that  were  dreadful,"  added  Anna- 
Felicitas,  her  face  sobering  at  the  thought  of  them. 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "You  see,  he  supposed 
Aunt  Alice  had  done  it,  in  a  fit  of  high  spirits,  though 
she  never  had  high  spirits " 

"And  wouldn't  have  been  allowed  to  if  she  had," 
explained  Anna-Fehcitas. 

"And  he  thought  she  was  laughing  at  him,"  said 
Anna-Rose,  "  though  we  have  never  seen  her  laugh " 

"And  I  don't  believe  he  has  either,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

"So  there  was  trouble,  because  he  couldn't  bear  the 
idea  of  her  laughing  at  him,  and  we  had  to  confess." 

"But  that  didn't  make  it  any  better  for  Aunt  Alice." 

"No,  because  then  he  said  it  was  her  fault  anyhow 
for  not  keeping  us  stricter." 

"So,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  "after  the  house  had  been 
steeped  in  a  sulphurous  gloom  for  over  a  week,  and  we 
all  felt  as  though  we  were  being  slowly  and  steadily 
gassed,  we  tried  to  make  it  up  by  writing  a  final  one — 
a  nice  one — and  leaving  it  on  his  plate  at  breakfast: 

Kiss  your  Wife.     But  instead  of  kissing  her  he " 

She  broke  off,  and  then  finished  a  httle  vaguely:  "Oh 
weU,  he  didn't." 

"Still,"  remarked  Anna-Rose,  "it  must  be  pleasant 
not  to  be  kissed  by  a  husband.  Aunt  Ahce  always 
wanted  him  to,  strange  to  say,  which  is  why  we  re- 
minded him  of  it.     He  used  to  forget  that  more  regu- 


274        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

larly  than  almost  anything.  And  the  people  who  lived 
in  the  house  nearest  us  were  just  the  opposite — the 
husband  was  for  ever  trying  to  kiss  the  person  who  was 
his  wife,  and  she  was  for  ever  dodging  him.'* 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Like  the  people  on 
Keats's  Grecian  Urn." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "And  that  sort  of  husband 
must  be  even  worse." 

"Oh,  much  worse,"  agreed  Anna-Felicitas. 
,  She  looked  round  amiably  at  the  three  quiet  figures 
in  the  chairs.     "I  shall  refrain  altogether  from  hus- 
bands," she  said  placidly.     "I  shall  take  something 
that  doesn't  kiss." 

And  she  fell  into  an  abstraction,  wondering,  with 
her  cheek  resting  on  her  hand,  what  he,  or  it,  would 
look  like. 

There  was  a  pause.  Anna-Rose  was  wondering  too 
what  sort  of  a  creature  Columbus  had  in  her  mind,  and 
how  many,  if  any,  legs  it  would  have;  and  the  other 
three  were,  as  before,  silent. 

Then  the  old  lady  said,  "Albert,"  and  put  out  her 
hand  to  be  helped  on  to  her  feet. 

The  old  gentleman  struggled  out  of  his  chair,  and 
helped  her  up.  His  face  had  a  congested  look,  as  if 
he  were  with  difficulty  keeping  back  things  he  wanted 
to  say. 

Miss  Heap  got  up  too,  stuffing  her  knitting  as  she  did 
so  into  her  brocaded  bag. 

"Go  on  ahead  and  ring  the  elevator  bell,  Albert," 
said  the  old  lady.  "It's  time  we  went  and  had  our 
nap." 

"I  ain't  going  to,"  said  the  old  gentleman  suddenly. 

"What  say?  What  ain't  you  going  to,  Albert?" 
said  the  old  lady,  turning  her  slow  eyes  roimd  to  him. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        275 

"Nap,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  his  face  very  red. 

It  was  intolerable  to  have  to  go  and  nap.  He  wished 
to  stay  where  he  was  and  talk  to  the,  twins.  Why 
should  he  have  to  nap  because  somebody  else  wanted 
to?  Why  should  he  have  to  nap  with  an  old  lady,  any- 
way? Never  in  his  life  had  he  wanted  to  nap  with  old 
ladies.     It  was  all  a  dreadful  mistake. 

"Albert,"  said  his  wife  looking  at  him. 

He  went  on  ahead  and  rang  the  lift-bell. 

"You're  quite  right  to  see  that  he  rests,  Mrs.  Rid- 
ding," said  Miss  Heap,  walking  away  with  her  and  slow- 
ing her  steps  to  suit  hers.  "I  should  say  it  was  essen- 
tial that  he  should  be  kept  quiet  in  the  afternoons. 
You  should  see  that  Mr.  Ridding  rests  more  than  he 
does.     Much  more,"  she  added  significantly. 

"I  can't  get  Mr.  Ridding  to  remember  that  we're 
neither  of  us " 

This  was  the  last  the  twins  heard. 

They  too  had  politely  got  out  of  their  chairs  when 
the  old  lady  began  to  heave  into  activity,  and  they 
stood  watching  the  three  departing  figures.  They  were 
a  little  surprised.  Surely  they  had  all  been  in  the 
middle  of  an  interesting  conversation? 

"Perhaps  it's  American  to  go  away  in  the  middle," 
remarked  Anna-Rose,  following  the  group  with  her  eyes 
as  it  moved  toward  the  lift. 

"Perhaps  it  is,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  also  gazing  after 
it. 

The  old  gentleman,  in  the  brief  moment  during  which 
the  two  ladies  had  their  backs  to  him  while  preceding 
him  into  the  lift,  turned  quickly  round  on  his  heels  and 
waved  his  hand  before  he  himself  went  in. 

The  twins  laughed,  and  waved  back;  and  they  waved 
with  such  goodwill  that  the  old  gentleman  couldn't 


276        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

resist  giving  one  more  wave.  He  was  seen  doing  it  by 
the  two  ladies  as  they  faced  round,  and  his  wife,  as  she 
let  herself  down  on  to  the  edge  of  the  seat,  remarked 
that  he  mustn't  exert  liimseK  Hke  that  or  he  would 
have  to  begin  taking  his  drops  again. 

That  was  all  she  said  in  the  lift;  but  in  their  room, 
when  she  had  got  her  breath  again,  she  said,  "Albert, 
there's  just  one  thmg  in  the  world  I  hate  worse  than  a 
fool,  and  that's  an  old  fool." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THAT  evening,  while  the  twins  were  undressing,  a 
message  came  up  from  the  office  that  the  manager 
would  be  obliged  if  the  Miss  Twinklers'  canary 
wouldn't  sing. 

"But  it  can't  help  it,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  through 
the  crack  of  door  she  held  open;  she  was  already  in  her 
nightgown.  "You  wouldn't  either  if  you  were  a  can- 
ary," she  added,  reasoning  with  the  messenger. 

"It's  just  got  to  help  it,"  said  he. 

"But  why  shouldn't  it  sing.?" 

"Complaints." 

"But  it  always  has  sung." 

"That  is  so.  And  it  has  simg  once  too  often.  It's 
unpopular  in  this  hotel,  that  canary  of  yours.  It's 
just  got  to  rest  a  while.  Take  it  easy.  Sit  quiet  on  its 
perch  and  think." 

"But  it  won't  sit  quiet  and  think." 

"Well,  I've  told  you,"  he  said,  going  away. 

This  was  the  bird  that  had  been  seen  arriving  at  the 
Cosmopolitan  about  a  week  before  by  the  lawyer,  and 
it  had  piercingly  sung  ever  since.  It  sang,  that  is,  as 
long  as  there  was  any  light,  real  or  artificial,  to  sing  by. 
The  boy  who  carried  it  from  the  shop  for  the  twins  said 
its  cage  was  to  be  hung  in  a  window  in  the  sim,  or  it 
couldn't  do  itself  justice.  But  electric  Hght  also  en- 
abled it  to  do  itself  justice,  the  twins  discovered,  and  if 
they  sat  up  late  the  canary  sat  up  late  too,  singing  as 
loudly  and  as  mechanically  as  if  it  hadn't  been  a  real 

277 


278        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

canary  at  all,  but  something  clever  and  American  with  a 
machine  inside  it. 

Secretly  the  twins  didn't  like  it.  Shocked  at  its  loud 
behaviour,  they  had  very  soon  agreed  that  it  was  no 
lady,  but  Anna-Rose  was  determined  to  have  it  at  The 
Open  Arms  because  of  her  conviction  that  no  house 
showing  the  trail  of  a  woman's  hand  was  without  a 
canary.  That,  and  a  workbag.  She  bought  them  both 
the  same  day.  The  workbag  didn't  matter,  because  it 
kept  quiet;  but  the  canary  was  a  very  big,  very  yellow 
bird,  much  bigger  and  yellower  than  the  frailer  canaries 
of  a  more  exhausted  civilization,  and  quite  incapable, 
unless  it  was  pitch  dark,  of  keeping  quiet  for  a  minute. 
Evidently,  as  Anna-Felicitas  said,  it  had  a  great  many 
lungs.  Her  idea  of  lungs,  in  spite  of  her  time  among 
them  and  similar  objects  at  a  hospital,  was  what  it  had 
always  been:  that  they  were  things  like  pink  macaroni 
strung  across  a  frame  of  bones  on  the  principle  of  a 
lyre  or  harp,  and  producing  noises.  She  thought  the 
canary  had  unusual  numbers  of  these  pink  strings,  a,nd 
all  of  them  of  the  biggest  and  dearest  kind  of  macaroni. 

The  other  guests  at  the  Cosmopolitan  had  been  rather 
restive  from  the  first  on  account  of  this  bird,  but  felft 
so  indulgent  toward  its  owners,  those  cute  Httle  relations 
or  charges  or  whatever  they  were  of  Teapot  Twist's, 
that  they  bore  its  singing  without  complaint.  But  on 
the  evening  of  the  day  the  Annas  had  the  interesting 
conversation  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ridding  and  Miss 
Heap,  two  definite  complaints  were  lodged  in  the  office, 
and  one  was  from  Mrs.  Ridding  and  the  other  was  from 
Miss  Heap. 

The  manager,  as  has  been  said,  was  already  sensitive 
about  the  canary.  Its  cage  was  straining  his  electric 
light  cord,  and  its  food,  assiduously  administered  in 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        279 

quantities  exceeding  its  capacity,  littered  the  expensive 
pink  pile  carpet.  He  therefore  lent  a  ready  ear  and 
sent  up  a  peremptory  message;  and  while  the  message 
was  going  up,  Miss  Heap,  who  had  come  herself  with 
her  complaint,  stayed  on  discussing  the  Twist  and 
Twinkler  party. 

She  said  nothing  really;  she  merely  asked  questions; 
and  not  one  of  the  questions,  now  they  were  put  to 
him,  did  the  manager  find  he  could  answer.  No  doubt 
everything  was  all  right.  Everybody  knew  about  Mr. 
Twist,  and  it  wasn't  likely  he  would  choose  an  hotel  of 
so  high  a  class  to  stay  in  if  his  relations  to  the  Miss 
Twinklers  were  anything  but  regular.  And  a  lady  com- 
panion, he  understood,  was  joining  the  party  shortly; 
and  besides,  there  was  the  house  being  got  ready,  a 
permanent  place  of  residence  he  gathered,  in  which  the 
party  would  settle  down,  and  experience  had  taught 
him  that  genuine  illicitness  was  never  permanent. 
Still,  the  manager  himself  hadn't  really  cared  about  the 
Twinklers  since  the  canary  came.  He  could  fill  the 
hotel  very  easily,  and  there  was  no  need  to  accommodate 
people  who  spoilt  carpets.  Also,  the  moment  the  least 
doubt  or  question  arose  among  his  guests,  all  of  whom 
he  knew  and  most  of  whom  came  back  regularly  every 
year,  as  to  the  social  or  moral  status  of  any  new  ar- 
rivals, then  those  arrivals  must  go.  Miss  Heap  evi- 
dently had  doubts.  Her  standard,  it  is  true,  was  the 
almost  impossibly  high  one  of  the  unmarried  lady  of 
riper  years,  but  Mrs.  Ridding,  he  understood,  had 
doubts  too;  and  once  doubts  started  in  an  hotel  he 
knew  from  experience  that  they  ran  through  it  like 
measles.     The  time  had  come  for  him  to  act. 

Next  morning,  therefore,  he  briskly  appeared  in  Mr. 
Twist's  room  as  he  was  pulling  on  his  boots,  and  cheer- 


280        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

fully  hoped  he  was  bearing  in  mind  what  he  had  been 
told  the  day  he  took  the  rooms,  that  they  were  engaged 
for  the  date  of  the  month  now  arrived  at. 

Mr.  Twist  paused  with  a  boot  half  on.  "I'm  not 
bearing  it  in  mind,"  he  said,  "because  you  didn't  tell 
me. 

"Oh  yes  I  did,  Mr.  Twist,"  said  the  manager  briskly. 
"It  isn't  Hkely  I'd  make  a  mistake  about  that.  The 
rooms  are  taken  every  year  for  this  date  by  the  same 
people.  Mrs.  Hart  of  Boston  has  this  one,  and  Mr. 
and  Mrs. " 

Mr.  Twist  heard  no  more.  He  finished  lacing  his 
boots  in  silence.  What  he  had  been  so  much  afraid 
of  had  happened:  he  and  the  twins  had  got  under  a 
cloud. 

The  twins  had  been  saying  things.  Last  night  they 
told  him  they  had  made  some  friends.  He  had  been 
imeasy  at  that,  and  questioned  them.  But  it  appeared 
they  had  talked  chiefly  of  their  Uncle  Arthur.  Well, 
damnable  as  Uncle  Arthur  was  as  a  man  he  was  safe 
enough  as  a  topic  of  conversation.  He  was  English. 
He  was  known  to  people  in  America  like  the  Delloggs 
and  the  Sacks.  But  it  was  now  clear  they  must  have 
said  things  besides  that.  Probably  they  had  expatiated 
on  Uncle  Arthur  from  some  point  of  view  undesirable 
to  American  ears.  The  American  ear  was  very  suscep- 
tible. He  hadn't  been  born  in  New  England  without 
becoming  aware  of  that. 

Mr.  Twist  tied  his  bootlaces  with  such  annoyance 
that  he  got  them  into  knots.  He  ought  never  to  have 
come  with  the  Annas  to  a  big  hotel.  Yet  lodgings 
would  have  been  worse.  Why  hadn't  that  white- 
haired  gasbag,  Mrs.  Bilton — Mr.  Twist's  thoughts  were 
sometimes  unjust — joined  them  sooner.'^    Why  had  that 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        281 

shirker  Dellogg  died?  He  got  his  bootlaces  hopelessly 
into  knots. 

"I'd  like  to  start  right  in  getting  the  rooms  fixed  up, 
Mr.  Twist,"  said  the  manager  pleasantly.  "Mrs. 
Hart  of  Boston  is  very " 

"See  here,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  straightening  himself 
and  turning  the  full  light  of  his  big  spectacles  on  to  him, 
"I  don't  care  a  curse  for  Mrs.  Hart  of  Boston." 

The  manager  expressed  regret  that  Mr.  Twist  should 
connect  a  curse  with  a  lady.  It  wasn't  American  to  do 
that.     Mrs.  Hart 

"Damn  Mrs.  Hart,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  had  become 
full-bodied  of  speech  while  in  France,  and  when  he  was 
goaded  let  it  all  out. 

The  manager  went  away.  And  so,  two  hours  later, 
did  Mr.  Twist  and  the  twins. 

"I  don't  know  what  you've  been  saying,"  he  said  in 
an  extremely  exasperated  voice,  as  he  sat  opposite 
them  in  the  taxi  with  their  grips,  considerably  added  to 
and  crowned  by  the  canary  who  was  singing,  piled  up 
round  him. 

"  Saying  .f^"  echoed  the  twins,  their  eyes  very  round. 

"But  whatever  it  was  you'd  have  done  better  to  say 
something  else.  Confound  that  bird.  Doesn't  it  ever 
stop  screeching  .f^" 

It  was  the  twins,  however,  who  were  confounded. 
So  much  confounded  by  what  they  considered  his 
unjust  severity  that  they  didn't  attempt  to  defend 
themselves,  but  sat  looking  at  him  with  proud  hurt 
eyes. 

By  this  time  they  both  had  become  very  fond  of  Mr. 
Twist,  and  accordingly  he  was  able  to  hurt  them. 
Anna-Rose,  indeed,  was  so  fond  of  him  that  she  actually 
thought  him  handsome.     She  had  boldly  said  so  to  the 


282        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

astonished  Anna-Felicitas  about  a  week  before;  and 
when  Anna-Feheitas  was  silent,  being  unable  to  agree, 
Anna-Rose  had  heatedly  explained  that  there  was 
handsomeness,  and  there  was  the  higher  handsomeness, 
and  that  that  was  the  one  Mr.  Twist  had.  It  was 
infinitely  better  than  mere  handsomeness,  said  Anna- 
Rose — curly  hair  and  a  straight  nose  and  the  rest  of  the 
silly  stuff — ^because  it  was  real  and  lasting;  and  it  was 
real  and  lasting  because  it  lay  in  the  play  of  the  features 
and  not  in  their  exact  position  and  shape. 

Anna-Felicitas  couldn't  see  that  Mr.  Twist's  features 
played.  She  looked  at  him  now  in  the  taxi  while  he 
angrily  stared  out  of  the  window,  and  even  though  he 
was  evidently  greatly  stirred  his  features  weren't  play- 
ing. She  didn't  particularly  want  them  to  play.  She 
was  fond  of  and  trusted  Mr.  Twist,  and  would  never 
even  have  thought  whether  he  had  features  or  not  if 
Anna-Rose  hadn't  taken  lately  to  talking  so  much 
about  them.  And  she  couldn't  help  remembering  how 
this  very  Christopher,  so  voluble  now  on  the  higher 
handsomeness,  had  said  on  board  the  St.  Luke  when 
first  commenting  on  Mr.  Twist  that  God  must  have 
got  tired  of  making  him  by  the  time  his  head  was 
reached.  Well,  Christopher  had  always  been  an  ideal- 
ist. When  she  was  eleven  she  had  violently  loved  the 
coachman.  Anna-Felicitas  hadn't  ever  violently  loved 
anybody  yet,  and  seeing  Anna-Rose  like  this  now  about 
Mr.  Twist  made  her  wonder  when  she  too  was  going  to 
begin.  Surely  it  was  time.  She  hoped  her  inability 
to  begin  wasn't  perhaps  because  she  had  no  heart. 
Still,  she  couldn't  begin  if  she  didn't  see  anybody  to 
begin  on. 

She  sat  silent  in  the  taxi,  with  Christopher  equally 
silent  beside  her,  both  of  them  observing  Mr.  Twist 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        283 

through  lowered  eyelashes.  Anna-Rose  watched  him 
with  hurt  and  anxious  eyes  like  a  devoted  dog  who  has 
been  kicked  without  cause.  Anna-Felicitas  watched 
him  in  a  more  detached  spirit.  She  had  a  real  affection 
for  him,  but  it  was  not,  she  was  sure  and  rather  re- 
gretted, an  affection  that  would  ever  be  likely  to  get  the 
better  of  her  reason.  It  wasn't  because  he  was  so  old, 
of  course,  she  thought,  for  one  could  love  the  oldest 
people,  beginning  with  that  standard  example  of  age, 
the  liebe  Gott;  it  was  because  she  liked  him  so  much. 

How  could  one  get  sentimental  over  and  love  some- 
body one  so  thoroughly  liked?  The  two  things  on  re- 
flection didn't  seem  to  combine  well.  She  was  sure,  for 
instance,  that  Aunt  Alice  had  loved  Uncle  Arthur, 
amazing  as  it  seemed,  but  she  was  equally  sure  she 
hadn't  liked  him.  And  look  at  the  liebe  Gott.  One 
loves  the  liebe  Gott,  but  it  would  be  going  too  far,  she 
thought,  to  say  that  one  likes  him. 

These  were  the  reflections  of  Anna-Felicitas  in  the 
taxi,  as  she  observed  through  her  eyelashes  the  object 
of  Anna-Rose's  idealization.  She  envied  Anna-Rose; 
for  here  she  had  been  steadily  expanding  every  day  more 
and  more  like  a  flower  under  the  influence  of  her  own 
power  of  idealization.  She  used  to  sparkle  and  grow 
rosy  like  that  for  the  coachman.  Perhaps  after  all  it 
didn't  much  matter  what  you  loved,  so  long  as  you 
loved  immensely.  It  was,  perhaps,  thought  Anna- 
Felicitas  approaching  this  subject  with  some  caution 
and  diffidence,  the  quantity  of  one's  love  that  mat- 
tered rather  than  the  quality  of  its  object.  Not  that 
Mr.  Twist  wasn't  of  the  very  first  quality,  except  to 
look  at;  but  what  after  all  were  faces?  The  coachman 
had  been,  as  it  were,  nothing  else  but  face,  so  hand- 
some was  he  and  so  without  any  other  recommendation. 


284        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

He  couldn't  even  drive;  and  her  father  had  very  soon 
kicked  him  out  with  the  vigour  and  absence  of  hesita- 
tion pecuhar  to  Junkers  when  it  comes  to  kicking; 
and  Anna-Rose  had  wept  all  over  her  bread  and 
butter  at  tea  that  day,  and  was  understood  to  say 
that  she  knew  at  last  what  it  must  be  like  to  be  a 
widow. 

Mr.  Twist,  for  all  that  he  was  looking  out  of  the  taxi 
window  with  an  angry  and  worried  face,  his  attention 
irritably  concentrated,  so  it  seemed,  on  the  objects 
passing  in  the  road,  very  well  knew  he  was  being 
observed.  He  wouldn't,  however,  allow  his  eye  to  be 
caught.  He  wasn't  going  to  become  entangled  at  this 
juncture  in  argument  with  the  Annas.  He  was  hastily 
making  up  his  mind,  and  there  wasn't  much  time  to  do 
it  in.  He  had  had  no  explanation  with  the  twins  since 
the  manager's  visit  to  his  room,  and  he  didn't  want  to 
have  any.  He  had  issued  brief  orders  to  them,  told 
them  to  pack,  declined  to  answer  questions,  and  had  got 
them  safely  into  the  taxi  with  a  minimum  waste  of 
time  and  words.  They  were  now  on  their  way  to  the 
station  to  meet  Mrs.  Bilton.  Her  train  from  Los 
Angeles  was  not  due  till  that  evening  at  six.  Never 
mind.  The  station  was  a  secure  place  to  deposit  the 
twins  and  the  baggage  in  till  she  came.  He  wished  he 
could  deposit  the  twins  in  the  parcel-room  as  easily  as 
he  could  their  grips — ^neatly  labelled,  put  away  safely 
on  a  shelf  till  called  for. 

Rapidly,  as  he  stared  out  of  the  window,  he  arrived 
at  decisions.  He  would  leave  the  twins  in  the  waiting- 
room  at  the  station  till  Mrs.  Bilton  was  due,  and  mean- 
while go  out  and  find  lodgings  for  them  and  her.  He 
himself  would  get  a  room  in  another  and  less  critical 
hotel,  and  stay  in  it  tiU  the  cottage  was  habitable.     So 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        285 

would  unassailable  respectability  once  more  descend 
like  a  white  garment  upon  the  party  and  cover  it  up. 

But  he  was  nettled;  nettled;  nettled  by  the  contre- 
temps that  had  occurred  on  the  very  last  day,  when  Mrs. 
Bilton  was  so  nearly  there;  nettled  and  exasperated. 
So  immensely  did  he  want  the  twins  to  be  happy,  to 
float  serenely  in  the  unclouded  sunshine  and  sweetness 
he  felt  was  their  due,  that  he  was  furious  with  them  for 
doing  anything  to  make  it  difficult.  And,  jerkily,  his 
angry  thoughts  pounced,  as  they  so  often  did,  on  Uncle 
Arthur.  Fancy  kicking  two  little  things  like  that  out 
into  the  world,  two  httle  breakable  things  like  that, 
made  to  be  cherished  and  watched  over.  Mr.  Twist 
was  pure  American  in  his  instinct  to  regard  the  female 
as  an  object  to  be  taken  care  of,  to  be  placed  securely  in 
a  charming  setting  and  kept  brightly  free  from  dust. 
If  Uncle  Arthur  had  had  a  shred  of  humanity  in  him, 
he  angrily  reflected,  the  Annas  would  have  stayed  under 
his  roof  throughout  the  war,  whatever  the  feeling  was 
against  aliens.  Never  would  a  decent  man  have 
chucked  them  out. 

He  turned  involuntarily  from  the  window  and  looked 
at  the  twins.  Their  eyes  were  fixed,  affectionate  and 
anxious,  on  his  face.  With  the  quick  change  of  mood 
of  those  whose  chins  are  weak  and  whose  hearts  are 
warm,  a  flood  of  love  for  them  gushed  up  within  him 
and  put  out  his  anger.  After  all,  if  Uncle  Arthur  had 
been  decent  he,  Edward  A.  Twist,  never  would  have 
met  these  blessed  children.  He  would  now  have  been 
at  Clark;  leading  lightless  days;  hopelessly  involved 
with  his  mother. 

His  loose,  unsteady  mouth  broke  into  a  big  smile. 
Instantly  the  two  faces  opposite  cleared  into  something 
shining. 


286        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Oh  dear,"  said  Anna-Felicltas  with  a  sigh  of  relief, 
*' it  is  refreshing  when  you  leave  off  being  cross." 

"We're  fearfully  sorry  if  we've  said  anything  we 
oughtn't  to  have,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "and  if  you  tell  us 
what  it  is  we  won't  say  it  again." 

"I  can't  tell  you,  because  I  don't  know  what  it  was,'* 
said  Mr.  Twist,  in  his  usual  kind  voice.  "I  only  see 
the  results.  And  the  results  are  that  the  Cosmopohtan 
is  tired  of  us,  and  we've  got  to  find  lodgings." 

"Lodgings.?" 

"Till  we  can  move  into  the  cottage.  I'm  going  to 
put  you  and  Mrs.  Bilton  in  an  apartment  in  Acapulco, 
and  go  myseK  to  some  hotel." 

The  twins  stared  at  him  a  moment  in  silence.  Then 
Anna-Rose  said  with  sudden  passion,  "You're  not." 

"How's  that.f^"  asked  Mr.  Twist;  but  she  was  pre- 
vented answering  by  the  arrival  of  the  taxi  at  the 
station. 

There  followed  ten  minutes'  tangle  and  confusion, 
at  the  end  of  which  the  twins  found  themselves  free  of 
their  grips  and  being  piloted  into  the  waiting-room  bj 
Mr.  Twist. 

"There,"  he  said.  "You  sit  here  quiet  and  good. 
I'll  come  back  about  one  o'clock  with  sandwiches  and 
candy  for  your  dinner,  and  maybe  a  story-book  or  two. 
You  mustn't  leave  this,  do  you  hear?  I'm  going  to 
hunt  for  those  lodgings." 

And  he  was  in  the  act  of  taking  off  his  hat  valedic- 
torily  when  Anna-Rose  again  said  with  the  same 
passion,  "You're  not." 

"Not  what.'^"  inquired  Mr.  Twist,  pausing  with  his 
hat  in  mid-air. 

"Gomg  to  hunt  for  lodgings.  We  won't  go  to 
them." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        287 

"Of  course  we  won't,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  with  no 
passion  but  with  an  infinitely  rock-hke  determination. 

"And  pray "  began  Mr.  Twist. 

"Go  into  lodgings  alone  with  Mrs.  Bilton.?"  inter- 
rupted Anna-Rose  her  face  scarlet,  her  whole  small 
body  giving  the  impression  of  indignant  feathers  stand- 
ing up  on  end.  "While  you're  somewhere  else? 
Away  from  us.^^    We  won't." 

"Of  course  we  won't,"  said  Anna-Fehcitas  again,  an 
almost  placid  quality  in  her  determination,  it  was  so 
final  and  so  unshakable.     "Would  you.^^" 

"See  here "  began  Mr.  Twist. 

"We  won't  see  anywhere,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Would  you,"  inquired  Anna-Felicitas,  again  reason- 
ing with  him,  "like  being  alone  in  lodgings  with  Mrs. 
Bilton?" 

"This  is  no  time  for  conversation,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 
making  for  the  door.  "You've  got  to  do  what  I  think 
best  on  this  occasion.     And  that's  all  about  it." 

"We  won't,"  repeated  Anna-Rose,  on  the  verge  of 
those  tears  which  always  with  her  so  quickly  followed 
any  sort  of  emotion. 

Mr.  Twist  paused  on  his  way  to  the  door.  "Well 
now  what  the  devil's  the  matter  with  lodgings?"  he 
asked  angrily. 

"It  isn't  the  devil,  it's  Mrs.  Bilton,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas.     "Would  you  yourself  like " 

"But  you've  got  to  have  Mrs.  Bilton  with  you  any- 
how from  to-day  on." 

"But  not  unadulterated  Mrs.  Bilton.  You  were  to 
have  been  with  us  too.  We  can't  be  drowned  all  by 
ourselves  in  Mrs.  Bilton.     You  wouldn't  like  it." 

"Of  course  I  wouldn't.  But  it's  only  for  a  few  days 
anyhow,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  had  been  quite  unpre- 


288        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

pared  for  opposition  to  his  very  sensible  arrangement. 
"I  shouldn't  wonder  if  it's  only  a  few  days  now  before 
we  can  all  squeeze  into  some  part  of  the  cottage.  If 
you  don't  mind  dust  and  noise  and  workmen  about  all 
day  long." 

A  light  pierced  the  gloom  that  had  gathered  round 
Anna-Felicitas's  soul. 

"We'll  go  into  it  to-day,"  she  said  firmly.  "Wliy 
not.f*  We  can  camp  out.  We  can  live  in  those  little 
rooms  at  the  back  over  the  kitchen, — ^the  ones  you  got 
ready  for  Li  Koo.  We'd  be  on  the  spot.  We  wouldn't 
mind  anything.     It  would  just  be  a  picnic." 

"And  we — we  wouldn't  be — sep — separated,"  said 
Anna-Rose,  getting  it  out  with  a  gasp. 

Mr.  Twist  stood  looking  at  them. 

"Well,  of  all  the "  he  began,  pushing  his  hat 

back.  "Are  you  aware,"  he  went  on  more  calmly, 
"that  there  are  only  two  rooms  over  that  kitchen,  and 
that  you  and  Mrs.  Bilton  will  have  to  be  all  together 
in  one  of  them?" 

"We  don't  mind  that  as  long  as  you're  in  the  other 
one,"  said  Anna-Rose. 

"Of  course,"  suggested  Anna-Felicitas,  "if  you  were 
to  happen  to  marry  Mrs.  Bilton  it  woulk  make  a  fairer 
division." 

Mr.  Twist's  spectacles  stared  enormously  at  her. 

"No,  no,"  said  Anna-Rose  quickly.  "Marriage 
is  a  sacred  thing,  and  you  can't  just  marry  so  as  to  be 
more  comfortable." 

"I  guess  if  I  married  Mrs.  Bilton  I'd  be  more  un- 
comfortable," remarked  Mr.  Twist  with  considerable 
dryness. 

He  seemed  however  to  be  quieted  by  the  bare  sug- 
gestion, for  he  fixed  his  hat  properly  on  his  head  and 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        289 

said,  sobriety  in  his  voice  and  manner,  "Come  along, 
then.  We'll  get  a  taxi  and  anyway  go  out  and  have  a 
look  at  the  rooms.  But  I  shouldn't  be  surprised,"  he 
added,  "if  before  I've  done  with  you  you'll  have 
driven  me  sheer  out  of  my  wits." 

"Oh,  donH  say  that,"  said  the  twins  together,  with 
all  and  more  of  their  usual  urbanity. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

BY  SUPERHUIVIAN  exertions  and  a  lavish  ex- 
penditure of  money,  the  rooms  Li  Koo  was  later 
on  to  inhabit  were  ready  to  be  slept  in  by  the 
time  Mrs.  Bilton  arrived.  They  were  in  an  outbuilding 
^t  the  back  of  the  house,  and  consisted  of  a  living-room 
with  a  cooking-stove  in  it,  a  bedroom  behind  it,  and  up 
a  narrow  and  curly  staircase  a  larger  room  running  the 
whole  length  and  width  of  the  shanty.  This  sounds 
spacious,  but  it  wasn't.  The  amount  of  length  and 
width  was  small,  and  it  was  only  just  possible  to  get 
three  camp-beds  into  it  and  a  washstand.  The  beds 
nearly  touched  each  other.  Anna-Felicitas  thought 
she  and  Anna-Rose  were  going  to  be  regrettably  close  to 
Mrs.  Bilton  in  them,  and  again  urged  on  Mr.  Twist's 
consideration  the  question  of  removing  Mrs.  Bilton 
from  the  room  by  marriage;  but  Anna-Rose  said  it 
was  all  perfect,  and  that  there  was  lots  of  room,  and  she 
was  sure  Mrs.  Bilton,  used  to  the  camp  life  so  exten- 
sively practised  in  America,  would  thoroughly  enjoy 
herself. 

They  worked  without  stopping  all  the  rest  of  the  day 
at  making  the  little  place  habitable,  nailing  up  some 
of  the  curtains  intended  for  the  other  house,  unpacking 
cushions,  and  fetching  in  great  bunches  of  the  pale  pink 
and  mauve  geraniums  that  scrambled  about  every- 
where in  the  garden  and  hiding  the  worst  places  in  the 
rooms  with  them.  Mr.  Twist  was  in  Acapulco  most 
of  the  time,  getting  together  the  necessary  temporary 

290 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        291 

furniture  and  cooking  utensils,  but  the  twins  didn't 
miss  him,  for  they  were  helped  with  zeal  by  the  archi- 
tect, the  electrical  expert,  the  garden  expert  and  the 
chief  plumber. 

These  young  men — ^they  were  all  young,  and  very 
go-ahead — abandoned  the  main  building  that  day  to 
the  undirected  labours  of  the  workmen  they  were  sup- 
posed to  control,  and  turned  to  on  the  shanty  as  soon 
as  they  realized  what  it  was  to  be  used  for  with  a  joyous 
energy  that  delighted  the  twins.  They  swept  and  they 
garnished-  They  cleaned  the  dust  off  the  windows  and 
the  rust  off  the  stove.  They  fetched  out  the  parcels 
with  tlie  curtains  and  cushions  in  them  from  the  bam 
where  all  parcels  and  packages  had  been  put  till  the 
house  was  ready,  and  extracted  various  other  comforts 
from  the  piled  up  packing-cases, — a  rug  or  two,  an  easy 
chair  for  Mrs.  Bilton,  a  looking-glass.  They  screwed 
in  hooks  behind  the  doors  for  clothes  to  be  hung  on, 
and  they  tied  the  canary  to  a  neighbouring  eucalyptus 
tree  where  it  could  be  seen  and  hardly  heard.  The  chief 
plumber  found  buckets  and  filled  them  with  water,  and 
the  electrical  expert  rigged  up  a  series  of  lanterns  inside 
the  shanty,  even  illuminating  its  tortuous  staircase. 
There  was  much  badinage,  but  as  it  was  all  in  American, 
a  language  of  which  the  twins  were  not  yet  able  to  appre- 
hend the  full  flavour,  they  responded  only  with  pleasant 
smiles.  But  their  smiles  were  so  pleasant  and  the 
family  dimple  so  engaging  that  the  hours  flew,  and  the 
young  men  were  sorry  indeed  when  Mr.  Twist  came 
back. 

^-  He  came  back  laden,  among  other  things,  with  food 
for  the  twins,  whom  he  had  left  in  his  hurry  high  and 
dry  at  the  cottage  with  nothing  at  all  to  eat;  and  he 
found  them  looking  particularly  comfortable  and  well- 


292        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

nourished,  having  eaten,  as  they  explained  when  they 
refused  his  sandwiches  and  fruit,  the  chief  plumber's 
dinner. 

They  were  sitting  on  the  stump  of  an  oak  tree  when 
he  arrived,  resting  from  their  labours,  and  the  grass  at 
their  feet  was  dotted  with  the  four  experts.  It  was  the 
twins  now  who  were  talking,  and  the  experts  who  were 
smiling.  Mr.  Twist  wondered  uneasily  what  they  were 
saying.  It  wouldn't  have  added  to  his  comfort  if  he 
had  heard,  for  they  were  giving  the  experts  an  account 
of  their  attempt  to  go  and  live  with  the  Sacks,  and  inter- 
weaving with  it  some  general  reflections  of  a  philosophi- 
cal nature  suggested  by  the  Sack  menage.  The  exi>erts 
were  keenly  interested,  and  everybody  looked  very 
happy,  and  Mr.  Twist  was  annoyed;  for  clearly  if  the 
experts  were  sitting  there  on  the  grass  they  weren't 
directing  the  workmen  placed  under  their  orders.  Mr. 
Twist  perceived  a  drawback  to  the  twins  living  on  the 
spot  while  the  place  was  being  finished;  another  draw- 
back. He  had  perceived  several  already,  but  not  this 
one.  Well,  Mrs.  Bilton  would  soon  be  there.  He  now 
counted  the  hours  to  Mrs.  Bilton.  He  positively 
longed  for  her. 

When  they  saw  him  coming,  the  experts  moved  awB-y. 
"Here's  the  boss,"  they  said,  nodding  and  winking  at 
the  twins  as  they  got  up  quickly  and  departed.  Wink- 
ing was  not  within  the  traditions  of  the  Twinkler  family, 
but  no  doubt,  they  thought,  it  was  the  custom  of  the 
country  to  wink,  and  they  wondered  whether  they 
ought  to  have  winked  back.  The  young  men  were  cer- 
tainly deserving  of  every  friendliness  in  return  for  all 
they  had  done.  They  decided  they  would  ask  Mrs. 
Bilton,  and  then  they  could  wink  at  them  if  necessary 
the  first  thing  to-morrow  morning. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       293 

Mr.  Twist  took  them  with  him  when  he  went  down 
to  the  station  to  meet  the  Los  Angeles  train.  It  was 
dark  at  six,  and  the  workmen  had  gone  home  by  then, 
but  the  experts  still  seemed  to  be  busy.  He  had  been 
astonished  at  the  amount  the  twins  had  accomplished 
in  his  absence  in  the  town  till  they  explained  to  him  how 
very  active  the  experts  had  been,  whereupon  he  said, 
"Now  isn't  that  nice,"  and  briefly  informed  them  they 
would  go  with  him  to  the  station. 

"That's  waste  of  time,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "We 
could  be  giving  finishing  touches  if  we  stayed  here." 

"You  will  come  with  me  to  the  station,"  said  Mr. 
Twist. 

Mrs.  Bilton  arrived  in  a  thick  cloud  of  conversation. 
She  supposed  she  was  going  to  the  Cosmopolitan  Hotel, 
as  indeed  she  originally  was,  and  all  the  way  back  in  the 
taxi  Mr.  Twist  was  trying  to  tell  her  she  wasn't;  but 
Mrs.  Bilton  had  so  much  to  say  about  her  journey,  and 
her  last  days  among  her  friends,  and  all  the  pleasant 
new  acquaintances  she  had  made  on  the  train,  and  her 
speech  was  so  very  close-knit,  that  he  felt  he  was  like  a 
rabbit  on  the  wrong  side  of  a  thick-set  hedge  running 
desperately  up  and  down  searching  for  a  gap  to  get 
through.  It  was  nothing  short  of  amazing  how  Mrs. 
Bilton  talked;  positively,  there  wasn't  at  any  moment 
the  smallest  pause  in  the  flow. 

"It's  a  disease,"  thought  Anna-Rose,  who  had  several 
things  she  wanted  to  say  herself,  and  found  herself 
hopelessly  muzzled. 

"No  wonder  Mr.  Bilton  preferred  heaven,"  thought 
Anna-FeHcitas,  also  a  little  restless  at  the  completeness 
of  her  muzzHng. 

"Anyhow  she'll  never  hear  the  Annas  saying  any- 
thing," thought  Mr.  Twist,  consoling  himself. 


294        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"This  hotel  we're  going  to  seems  to  be  located  at 
some  distance  from  the  station,"  said  Mrs.  Bilton 
presently,  in  the  middle  of  several  pages  of  rapid  un- 

punctuated   monologue.     "Isolated,   surely "   and 

off  she  went  again  to  other  matters,  just  as  Mr.  Twist 
had  got  his  mouth  open  to  explain  at  last. 

She  arrived  therefore  at  the  cottage  unconscious  of 
the  change  in  her  fate. 

Now  Mrs.  Bilton  was  as  fond  of  comfort  as  any 
other  woman  who  has  been  deprived  for  some  years  of 
that  substitute  for  comfort,  a  husband.  She  had  looked 
forward  to  the  enveloping  joys  of  the  Cosmopolitan, 
its  bath,  its  soft  bed  and  good  food,  with  frank  satisfac- 
tion. She  thought  it  admirable  that  before  embarking 
on  active  duties  she  should  for  a  space  rest  luxuriously 
in  an  excellent  hotel,  with  no  care  in  regard  to  expense, 
and  exchange  ideas  while  she  rested  with  the  interesting 
people  she  would  be  sure  to  meet  in  it.  Before  the 
interview  in  Los  Angeles,  Mr.  Twist  had  explained  to 
her  by  letter  and  under  the  seal  of  confidence  the  philan- 
thropic nature  of  the  project  he  and  the  Miss  Twinklers 
were  engaged  upon,  and  she  was  prepared,  in  return  for 
the  very  considerable  salary  she  had  accepted,  to  do  her 
duty  loyally  and  unremittingly;  but  after  the  stress  and 
hard  work  of  her  last  days  in  Los  Angeles  she  had  cer- 
tainly looked  forward  with  a  particular  pleasure  to 
two  or  three  weeks'  delicious  wallowing  in  flesh-pots  for 
which  she  had  not  to  pay.  She  was  also,  however,  a 
lady  of  grit;  and  she  possessed,  as  she  said  her  friends 
often  told  her,  a  redoubtable  psyche,  a  genuine  Ameri- 
can free  and  fearless  psyche;  so  that  when,  talking  cease- 
lessly, her  thoughts  eagerly  jostling  each  other  as  they 
streamed  through  her  brain  to  get  first  to  the  exit  of  her 
tongue,  she  caught  her  foot  in  some  builder's  debris 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        295 

carelessly  left  on  the  path  up  to  the  cottage  and  re- 
ceived in  this  way  positively  her  first  intimation  that 
this  couldn't  be  the  Cosmopolitan,  she  did  not,  as  a 
more  timid  female  soul  well  might  have,  become  alarmed 
and  suppose  that  Mr.  Twist,  whom  after  all  she  didn't 
know,  had  brought  her  to  this  solitary  place  for  pur- 
poses of  assassination,  but  stopped  firmly  just  where 
she  was,  and  turning  her  head  in  the  darkness  toward 
him  said,  "Now  Mr.  Twist,  I'll  stand  right  here  till 
you're  able  to  apply  some  sort  of  illumination  to  what's 
at  my  feet.  I  can't  say  what  it  is  I've  walked  against 
but  I'm  not  going  any  further  with  this  promenade  till 
I  can  say.  And  when  you've  thrown  light  on  the  sub- 
ject perhaps  you'll  oblige  me  with  information  as  to 
where  that  hotel  is  I  was  told  I  was  coming  to." 

"Information?"  cried  Mr.  Twist.  "Haven't  I  been 
trying  to  give  it  you  ever  since  I  met  you?  Haven't 
I  been  trying  to  stop  your  getting  out  of  the  taxi  till 
I'd  fetched  a  lantern?  Haven't  I  been  trying  to  offer 
you  my  arm  along  the  path " 

"Then  why  didn't  you  say  so,  Mr.  Twist?"  asked 
Mrs.  Bilton. 

"Say  so!"  cried  Mr.  Twist. 

At  that  moment  the  flash  of  an  electric  torch  was  seen 
jerking  up  and  down  as  the  person  carrying  it  ran 
toward  them.  It  was  the  electrical  expert  who,  most 
fortunately,  happened  still  to  be  about. 

Mrs.  Bilton  welcomed  him  warmly,  and  taking  his 
torch  from  him  first  examined  what  she  called  the  loca- 
tion of  her  feet,  then  gave  it  back  to  him  and  put  her 
hand  through  his  arm.  "Now  guide  me  to  whatever 
it  is  has  been  substituted  without  my  knowledge  for  that 
hotel,"  she  said;  and  while  Mr.  Twist  went  back  to  the 
taxi  to  deal  with  her  grips,  she  walked  carefully  toward 


296        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

the  shanty  on  the  expert's  arm,  expressing,  in  an  im- 
mense number  of  words,  the  astonishment  she  felt  at 
Mr.  Twist's  not  having  told  her  of  the  disappearance  of 
the  Cosmopolitan  from  her  itinerary. 

The  electrical  expert  tried  to  speak,  but  was  drowned 
without  further  struggle.  Anna-Rose,  unable  to  listen 
any  longer  without  answering  to  the  insistent  inquiries 
as  to  why  Mr.  Twist  had  kept  her  in  the  dark,  raised 
her  voice  at  last  and  called  out,  "But  he  wanted  to — 
he  wanted  to  all  the  time — ^you  wouldn't  listen — ^you 
wouldn't  stop " 

Mrs.  Bilton  did  stop  however  when  she  got  inside  the 
shanty.  Her  tongue  and  her  feet  stopped  dead  to- 
gether. The  electrical  expert  had  lit  all  the  lanterns, 
and  coming  upon  it  in  the  darkness  its  hghted  win- 
dows gave  it  a  cheerful,  welcoming  look.  But  inside 
no  amount  of  light  and  bunches  of  pink  geraniums  could 
conceal  its  discomforts,  its  dreadful  smallness;  besides, 
pink  geraniums,  which  the  twins  were  accustomed  to 
regard  as  precious,  as  things  brought  up  lovingly  in 
pots,  were  nothing  but  weeds  to  Mrs.  Bilton 's  ex- 
perienced Californian  eye. 

She  stared  round  her  in  silence.  Her  sudden  quiet 
fell  on  the  twins  with  a  great  sense  of  refreshment. 
Standing  in  the  doorway — for  Mrs.  Bilton  and  the 
electrical  expert  between  them  filled  up  most  of  the 
kitchen — they  heaved  a  deep  sigh.  "And  see  how 
beautiful  the  stars  are,"  whispered  Anna-Felicitas  in 
Anna-Rose's  ear;  she  hadn't  been  able  to  see  them  before 
somehow,  Mrs.  Bilton's  voice  had  so  much  ruffled  the 
night. 

"Do  you  think  she  talks  in  her  sleep?"  Anna-Rose 
anxiously  whispered  back. 

But  Mr.  Twist,  arriving  with  his  hands  full,  was  stag- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        297 

gered  to  find  Mrs.  Bilton  not  talking.  An  icy  fear 
seized  his  heart.  She  was  going  to  refuse  to  stay  with 
them.  And  she  would  be  within  her  rights  if  she  did, 
for  certainly  what  she  called  her  itinerary  had  promised 
her  a  first-rate  hotel,  in  which  she  was  to  continue  till 
a  finished  and  comfortable  house  was  stepped  into. 

"I  wish  you'd  say  something,"  he  said,  plumping 
down  the  bags  he  was  carrying  on  the  kitchen  floor. 

The  twins  from  the  doorway  looked  at  him  and  then 
at  each  other  in  great  surprise.  Fancy  asking  Mrs. 
Bilton  to  say  something. 

"They  would  come,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  resentfully, 
jerking  his  head  toward  the  Annas  in  the  doorway. 

"It's  worse  upstairs,"  he  went  on  desperately  as  Mrs. 
Bilton  still  was  dumb. 

"  Woree  upstairs?  "  cried  the  twins,  as  one  woman. 

"It's  perfect  upstairs,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"It's  like  camping  out  without  being  out,"  said  Anna- 
Rose. 

"The  only  drawback  is  that  there  are  rather  a  lot  of 
beds  in  our  room,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,"  but  that  of 
course" — she  turned  to  Mr.  Twist — "might  easily  be 
arranged " 

"I  wish  you'd  say  something,  Mrs.  Bilton,"  he  inter- 
rupted quickly  and  loud. 

Mrs.  Bilton  drew  a  deep  breath  and  looked  round 
her.  She  looked  round  the  room,  and  she  looked  up  at 
the  ceiling,  which  the  upright  feather  in  her  hat  was 
tickling,  and  she  looked  at  the  faces  of  the  twins,  lit 
flickeringly  by  the  uncertain  light  of  the  lanterns. 
Then,  woman  of  grit,  wife  who  had  never  failed  him  of 
Bruce  D.  Bilton,  widow  who  had  remained  poised  and 
indomitable  on  a  small  income  in  a  circle  of  well-off 
friends,  she  spoke;  and  she  said: 


298        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"]Mr.  Twist,  I  can't  say  what  this  means,  and  you'll 
furnish  me  no  doubt  with  information,  but  whatever  it 
is  I'm  not  the  woman  to  put  my  hand  to  a  plough  and 
then  turn  back  again.  That  type  of  behaviour  may 
have  been  good  enough  for  Pharisees  and  Sadducees, 
who  if  I  remember  rightly  had  to  be  specially  warned 
against  the  practice,  but  it  isn't  good  enough  for  me. 
You've  conducted  me  to  a  shack  instead  of  the  hotel  I 
was  promised,  and  I  await  your  explanation.  Mean- 
while, is  there  any  supper?" 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

IT  WAS  only  a  fortnight  after  this  that  the  inn  was 
ready  to  be  opened,  and  it  was  only  during  the  first 
days  of  this  fortnight  that  the  party  in  the  shanty  had 
to  endure  any  serious  discomfort.  The  twins  didn't  mind 
the  physical  discomfort  at  all;  what  they  minded,  and 
began  to  mind  almost  immediately,  was  the  spiritual  dis- 
comfort of  being  at  such  close  quarters  with  Mrs.  Bilton. 
They  hardly  noticed  the  physical  side  of  that  close  as- 
sociation in  such  a  lovely  climate,  where  the  whole  of 
out-of-doors  can  be  used  as  one's  living-room;  and  their 
morning  dressing,  a  difficult  business  in  the  shanty  for 
anybody  less  young  and  more  needing  to  be  careful, 
was  rather  like  the  getting  up  of  a  dog  after  its  night's 
sleep — they  seemed  just  to  shake  themselves,  and  there 
they  were. 

They  got  up  before  Mrs.  Bilton,  who  was,  however, 
always  awake  and  talking  to  them  while  they  dressed, 
and  they  went  to  bed  before  she  did,  though  she  came 
up  with  them  after  the  first  night  and  read  aloud  to  them 
while  they  undressed;  so  that  as  regarded  the  mysteries 
of  Mrs.  Bilton's  toilette  they  were  not,  after  all,  much  in 
her  way.  It  was  like  caravaning  or  camping  out:  you 
managed  your  movements  and  moments  skilfully,  and 
if  you  were  Mrs.  Bilton  you  had  a  curtain  slung  across 
your  part  of  the  room,  in  case  your  younger  charges 
shouldn't  always  be  asleep  when  they  looked  as  if  they 
were. 

Gradually  one  alleviation  was  added  to  another,  and 

299 


300        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Mrs.  Bilton  forgot  the  rigours  of  the  beginning.  Li 
Koo  arrived,  for  instance,  fetched  by  a  telegram,  and 
under  a  tent  in  the  eucalyptus  grove  at  the  back  of  the 
house  set  up  an  old  iron  stove  and  produced,  with  no 
apparent  exertion,  extraordinarily  interesting  and  amus- 
ing food.  He  went  into  Acapulco  at  daylight  every 
morning  and  did  the  marketing.  He  began  almost 
immediately  to  do  everything  else  in  the  way  of  house- 
keeping. He  was  exquisitely  clean,  and  saw  to  it  that 
the  shanty  matched  him  in  cleanliness.  To  the  sur- 
prise and  gratification  of  the  twins,  who  had  supposed 
it  would  be  their  lot  to  go  on  doing  the  housework  of 
the  shanty,  he  took  it  over  as  a  matter  of  course,  dust- 
ing, sweeping,  and  tidying  like  a  practised  and  very 
excellent  housemaid.  The  only  thing  he  refused  to  do 
was  to  touch  the  three  beds  in  the  upper  chamber. 
**Me  no  make  lady-beds,"  he  said  briefly. 

Li  Koo's  salary  was  enormous,  but  Mr.  Twist,  with 
a  sound  instinct,  cared  nothing  what  he  paid  so  long  as 
he  got  the  right  man.  He  was,  indeed,  much  satisfied 
with  his  two  employees,  and  congratulated  himself  on 
his  luck.  It  is  true  in  regard  to  Mrs.  Bilton  his  satis- 
faction was  rather  of  the  sorrowful  sort  that  a  fresh  ache 
in  a  different  part  of  one's  body  from  the  first  ache  gives : 
it  relieved  him  from  one  by  substituting  another.  Mrs. 
Bilton  overwhelmed  him;  but  so  had  the  Annas  begun 
to.  Her  overwhelming,  however,  was  different,  and 
freed  him  from  that  other  worse  one.  He  felt  safe  now 
about  the  Annas,  and  after  all  there  were  parts  of  the 
building  in  which  Mrs.  Bilton  wasn't.  There  was  his 
bedroom,  for  instance.  Thank  God  for  bedrooms, 
thought  Mr.  Twist.  He  grew  to  love  his.  What  a 
haven  that  poky  and  silent  place  was;  what  a  blessing 
the  conventions  were,  and  the  proprieties.     Supposing 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        301 

civilization  were  so  far  advanced  that  people  could  no 
longer  see  the  harm  there  is  in  a  bedroom,  what  would 
have  become  of  him?  Mr.  Twist  could  perfectly  ac- 
count for  Bruce  D.  Bilton's  death.  It  wasn't  diabetes, 
as  Mrs.  Bilton  said;  it  was  just  bedroom. 

Still,  Mrs.  Bilton  was  an  undoubted  find,  and  did 
immediately  in  those  rushed  days  take  the  Annas  off 
his  mind.  He  could  leave  them  with  her  in  the  com- 
fortable certitude  that  whatever  else  they  did  to  Mrs. 
Bilton  they  couldn't  talk  to  her.  Never  would  she 
know  the  peculiar  ease  of  the  Twinkler  attitude  toward 
subjects  Americans  approach  with  care.  Never  would 
they  be  able  to  tell  her  things  about  Uncle  Arthur,  the 
kind  of  things  that  had  caused  the  Cosmopolitan  to 
grow  so  suddenly  cool.  There  was,  most  happily  for 
this  particular  case,  no  arguing  with  Mrs.  Bilton.  The 
twins  couldn't  draw  her  out  because  she  was  already, 
as  it  were,  so  completely  out.  This  was  a  great  thing, 
Mr.  Twist  felt,  and  made  up  for  any  personal  suffoca- 
tion he  had  to  bear;  and  when  on  the  afternoon  of  Mrs. 
Bilton's  first  day  the  twins  appeared  without  her  in  the 
main  building  in  search  of  him,  having  obviously  given 
her  the  slip,  and  said  they  were  sorry  to  disturb  him  but 
they  wanted  his  advice,  for  though  they  had  been  trying 
hard  all  day,  remembering  they  were  ladies  and  prac- 
tically hostesses,  they  hadn't  yet  succeeded  in  saying 
anything  at  all  to  Mjs.  Bilton  and  doubted  whether 
they  ever  would,  he  merely  smiled  happily  at  them  and 
said  to  Anna-Rose,  "See  how  good  comes  out  of  evil" — 
a  remark  that  they  didn't  like  when  they  had  had  time 
to  think  over  it. 

But  they  went  on  struggling.  It  seemed  so  unnatural 
to  be  all  alone  all  day  long  with  someone  and  only 
listen.     Mrs.  Bilton  never  left  their  side,  regarding  it  as 


302        CHKISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

proper  and  merely  fulfilling  her  part  of  the  bargain,  in 
these  first  confused  days  when  there  was  nothing  for 
ladies  to  do  but  look  on  while  perspiring  workmen 
laboured  at  apparently  producing  more  and  more 
chaos,  to  become  thoroughly  acquainted  with  her  young 
charges.  This  she  did  by  imparting  to  them  intimate 
and  meticulous  information  about  her  own  life,  with  the 
whole  of  the  various  uplifts,  as  she  put  it,  her  psyche 
had  during  its  unfolding  experienced.  There  was  so 
much  to  tell  about  herself  that  she  never  got  to  inquiring 
about  the  twins.  She  knew  they  were  orphans,  and 
that  this  was  a  good  work,  and  for  the  moment  had  no 
time  for  more. 

The  twins  were  profoundly  bored  by  her  psyche, 
chiefly  because  they  didn't  know  what  part  of  her  it 
was,  and  it  was  no  use  asking  for  she  didn't  answer; 
but  they  hstened  with  real  mterest  to  her  concrete 
experiences,  and  especially  to  the  experiences  connected 
with  Mr.  Bilton.  They  particularly  wished  to  ask 
questions  about  Mr.  Bilton,  and  find  out  what  he  had 
thought  of  things.  Mrs.  Bilton  was  lavish  in  her  details 
of  what  she  had  thought  herself,  but  Mr.  Bilton's 
thoughts  remained  impenetrable.  It  seemed  to  the 
twins  that  he  must  have  thought  a  lot,  and  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  much  to  be  said  for 
death. 

The  Biltons,  it  appeared,  had  been  the  opposite  of 
the  Clouston-Sacks,  and  had  never  been  separated  for  a 
single  day  during  the  whole  of  their  married  life.  This 
seemed  to  the  twins  very  strange,  and  needing  a  great 
deal  of  explanation.  In  order  to  get  light  thrown  on  it 
the  first  thing  they  wanted  to  find  out  was  how  long  the 
marriage  had  lasted;  but  Mrs.  Bilton  was  deaf  to  their 
inquiries,  and  having  described  Mr.  Bilton's  last  mo- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        303 

ments  and  obsequies — obsequies  scheduled  by  her,  she 
said,  with  so  tender  a  regard  for  his  memory  that  she 
insisted  on  a  horse-drawn  hearse  instead  of  the  more 
fashionable  automobile  conveyance,  on  the  ground  that 
a  motor  hearse  didn't  seem  sorry  enough  even  on  first 
speed — she  washed  along  with  an  easy  flow  to  descrip- 
tions of  the  dreadfulness  of  the  early  days  of  widow- 
hood, when  one's  crepe  veil  keeps  on  catching  in  every- 
thing— chairs,  overhanging  branches,  and  passers-by, 
including  it  appeared  on  one  occasion  a  policeman. 
She  inquired  of  the  twins  whether  they  had  ever  seen 
a  new-made  widow  in  a  wind.  Chicago,  she  said,  was  a 
windy  place,  and  Mr.  Bilton  passed  in  its  windiest 
month.  Her  long  veil,  as  she  proceeded  down  the 
streets  on  the  daily  constitutional  she  considered  it  her 
duty  toward  the  living  to  take,  for  one  owes  it  to  one's 
friends  to  keep  oneself  fit  and  not  give  way,  was  blown 
hither  and  thither  in  the  buffeting  cross-currents  of  that 
uneasy  climate,  and  her  walk  in  the  busier  streets  was  a 
series  of  entanglements.  Embarrassing  entanglements, 
said  Mrs.  Bilton.  Fortunately  the  persons  she  got 
caught  in  were  delicacy  and  sympathy  itself;  often, 
mdeed,  seeming  quite  overcome  by  the  peculiar  poig- 
nancy of  the  situation,  covered  with  confusion,  profuse 
in  apologies.  Sometimes  the  wind  would  cause  her 
veil  for  a  few  moments  to  rear  straight  up  above  her 
head  in  a  monstrous  black  column  of  woe.  Sometimes, 
if  she  stopped  a  moment  waiting  to  cross  the  street, 
it  would  whip  round  the  body  of  any  one  who  happened 
to  be  near,  like  a  cord.  It  did  this  once  about  the  body 
of  the  policeman  directing  the  traffic,  by  whose  side  she 
had  paused,  and  she  had  to  walk  round  him  backwards 
before  it  could  be  unwound.  The  Chicago  evening 
papers,  prompt  on  the  track  of  a  sensation,  had  caused 


304        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

her  friemls  much  painful  if  only  short-lived  amazement 
by  coming  out  with  huge  equivocal  headlines: 

WELL-KNOWN  SOCIETY  WIDOW  AND 
POLICEMAN  CAUGHT  TOGETHER 

and  beginning  their  description  of  the  occurrence  by 
printing  her  name  in  full.  So  that  for  the  first  sentence 
or  two  her  friends  were  a  prey  to  horror  and  distress, 
which  turned  to  indignation  on  discovering  there  was 
nothing  in  it  after  all. 

The  twins,  their  eyes  on  Mrs.  Bilton's  face,  their 
hands  clasp>ed  round  their  knees,  their  bodies  sitting  on 
the  grass  at  her  feet,  occasionally  felt  as  they  followed 
her  narrative  that  they  were  somehow  out  of  their 
depth  and  didn't  quite  understand.  It  was  extraordi- 
narily exasperating  to  them  to  be  so  completely  muzzled. 
They  were  accustomed  to  elucidate  points  they  didn't 
imderstand  by  immediate  inquiry;  they  had  a  habit  of 
asking  for  information,  and  then  delivering  comments 
on  it. 

This  condition  of  repression  made  them  most  uncom- 
fortable. The  ilex  tree  in  the  field  below  the  house,  to 
which  Mrs.  Bilton  shepherded  them  each  morning  and 
afternoon  for  the  first  three  days,  became  to  them,  in 
spite  of  its  beauty  with  the  view  from  under  its  dark 
shade  across  the  sunny  fields  to  the  sea  and  the  delicate 
distant  islands,  a  painful  spot.  The  beauty  all  round 
them  was  under  these  conditions  exasperating.  Only 
once  did  Mrs.  Bilton  leave  them,  and  that  was  the  first 
afternoon,  when  they  instantly  fled  to  seek  out  Mr. 
Twist;  and  she  only  left  them  then — ^for  it  wasn't  just 
her  sense  of  duty  that  was  strong,  but  also  her  dislike 
of  being  alone — ^because  something  unexpectedly  gave 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        305 

way  in  the  upper  part  of  her  dress,  she  being  of  a  tight 
well-held-in  figure,  depending  much  on  its  buttons; 
and  she  had  very  hastily  to  go  in  search  of  ^  needle. 

After  that  they  didn't  see  Mr.  Twist  alone  for  several 
days.  They  hardly  indeed  saw  him  at  all.  The  only 
meal  he  shared  with  them  was  supper,  and  on  finding 
the  first  evening  that  Mrs.  Bilton  read  aloud  to  people 
after  supper,  he  made  the  excuse  of  accounts  to  go 
through  and  went  into  his  bedroom,  repeating  this  each 
night. 

The  twins  watched  him  go  with  agonized  eyes.  They 
considered  themselves  deserted;  shamefully  abandoned 
to  a  miserable  fate. 

"And  it  isn't  as  if  he  didn't  like  reading  aloud," 
whispered  Anna-Rose,  bewildered  and  indignant  as  she 
remembered  the  "Ode  to  Dooty." 

"Perhaps  he's  one  of  those  people  who  only  like  it  if 
they  do  it  themselves,"  Anna-Felicitas  whispered  back, 
trying  to  explain  his  base  behaviour. 

And  while  they  whispered,  Mrs.  Bilton  with  great 
enjoyment  declaimed — she  had  had  a  course  of  elocution 
lessons  during  Mr.  Bilton's  life  so  as  to  be  able  to  place 
the  befft  literature  advantageously  before  him — ^the 
diary  of  a  young  girl  written  in  prison.  The  young  girl 
had  been  wrongfully  incarcerated,  Mrs.  Bilton  explained, 
and  her  pure  soul  only  found  release  by  the  demise  of 
her  body.  The  twins  hated  the  young  girl  from  the 
first  paragraph.  She  wrote  her  diary  every  day  till  her 
demise  stopped  her.  As  nothing  happens  in  prisons 
that  hasn't  happened  the  day  before,  she  could  only 
write  her  reflections;  and  the  twins  hated  her  reflections, 
because  they  were  so  very  like  what  in  their  secret 
moments  of  slush  they  were  apt  to  reflect  themselves. 
Their  mother  had  had  a  horror  of  slush.     There  had 


306        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

been  none  anywhere  about  her;  but  it  is  in  the  air  in 
Germany,  in  people's  blood,  everywhere;  and  though 
the  twins,  owing  to  the  English  part  of  them,  had  a 
horror  of  it  too,  there  it  was  in  them,  and  they  knew  it, 
— ^genuine  German  slush. 

They  felt  uncomfortably  sure  that  if  they  were  in 
prison  they  would  write  a  diary  very  much  on  these 
lines.  For  three  evenings  they  had  to  listen  to  it,  their 
eyes  on  Mr.  Twist's  door.  Why  didn't  he  come  out  and 
save  them?  What  happy,  what  glorious  evenings  they 
used  to  have  at  the  Cosmopolitan,  spent  in  intelligent 
conversation,  in  a  decent  give  and  take — not  this  but- 
ton-holing business,  this  being  got  into  a  comer  and  held 
down;  and  alas,  how  little  they  had  appreciated  them! 
They  used  to  get  sleepy  and  break  them  off  and  go  to 
bed.  If  only  he  would  come  out  now  and  talk  to  them 
they  would  sit  up  all  night.  They  wriggled  with  im- 
patience in  their  seats  beneath  the  SpancJiements  of  the 
young  girl,  the  strangely  and  distressingly  familiar 
epanchements.  The  diary  was  published  in  a  magazine, 
and  after  the  second  evening,  when  Mrs.  Bilton  on 
laying  it  down  announced  she  would  go  on  with  it  while 
they  were  dressing  next  morning,  they  got  up  very  early 
before  Mrs.  Bilton  was  awake  and  crept  out  and  hid  it- 

But  Li  Koo  found  it  and  restored  it. 

Li  Koo  found  everything.  He  found  Mrs.  Bilton's 
outdoor  shoes  the  third  morning,  although  the  twins 
had  hidden  them  most  carefully.  Their  idea  was  that 
while  she,  rendered  immobile,  waited  indoors,  they 
would  zealously  look  for  them  in  all  the  places  where 
they  well  knew  that  they  weren't,  and  perhaps  get  some 
conversation  with  Mr.  Twist. 

But  Li  Koo  found  everything.  He  found  the  twins 
themselves   the    fourth    morning,    when,    unable   any 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        307 

longer  to  bear  Mrs.  Bilton's  voice,  they  ran  into  the 
woods  instead  of  coming  in  to  breakfast.  He  seemed  to 
find  them  at  once,  to  walk  unswervingly  to  their  remote 
and  bramble-filled  ditch. 

In  order  to  save  their  dignity  they  said  as  they  scram- 
bled out  that  they  were  picking  flowers  for  Mrs.  Bilton's 
breakfast,  though  the  ditch  had  nothing  in  it  but  stones 
and  thorns.  Li  Koo  made  no  comment.  He  never  did 
make  comments;  and  his  silence  and  his  ubiquitous 
efficiency  made  the  twins  as  fidgety  with  him  as  they 
were  with  Mrs.  Bilton  for  the  opposite  reason.  They 
had  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that  he  was  rather  like 
the  liebe  GotU — ^he  saw  everything,  knew  everything, 
and  said  nothing.  In  vain  they  tried,  on  that  walk 
back  as  at  other  times,  to  pierce  his  impassivity  with 
genialities.  Li  Koo — ^again,  they  silently  reflected, 
like  the  liebe  Gott — ^had  a  different  sense  of  geniality 
from  theirs;  he  couldn't  apparently  smile;  they  doubted 
if  he  even  ever  wanted  to.  Their  genialities  faltered 
and  froze  on  their  lips. 

Besides,  they  were  deeply  humiliated  by  having  been 
found  hiding,  and  were  ashamed  to  find  themselves 
trying  anxiously  in  this  manner  to  conciliate  Li  Koo. 
Their  dignity  on  the  walk  back  to  the  shanty  seemed 
painfully  shrunk.  They  ought  never  to  have  conde- 
scended to  do  the  childish  things  they  had  been  doing 
during  the  last  three  days.  If  they  hadn't  been  found 
out  it  would,  of  course,  have  remained  a  private  matter 
between  them  and  their  Maker,  and  then  one  doesn't 
mind  so  much;  but  they  had  been  found  out,  and  by  Li 
Koo,  their  own  servant.  It  was  intolerable.  All  the 
blood  of  all  the  Twinklers,  Junkers  from  time  immemo- 
rial and  properly  sensitive  to  humiliation,  surged  within 
them.     They  hadn't  felt  so  naughty  and  so  young  for 


308        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

years.  They  were  sure  Li  Koo  didn't  believe  them 
about  the  ditch.  They  had  a  dreadful  sensation  of 
being  led  back  to  Mrs.  Bilton  by  the  ear. 

If  only  they  could  sack  Mrs.  Bilton! 

This  thought,  immense  and  startling,  came  to  Anna- 
Rose,  who  far  more  than  Anna-Felicitas  resented  being 
cut  off  from  Mr.  Twist,  besides  being  more  naturally 
impetuous;  and  as  they  walked  in  silence  side  by  side, 
with  Li  Koo  a  little  ahead  of  them,  she  turned  her  head 
and  looked  at  Anna-Felicitas.  "Let's  give  her  notice," 
she  murmured,  under  her  breath. 

Anna-Felicitas  was  so  much  taken  aback  that  she 
stopped  in  her  walk  and  stared  at  Anna-Rose's  flushed 
face. 

She  too  hardly  breathed  it.  The  suggestion  seemed 
fantastic  in  its  monstrousness.  How  could  they  give 
anybody  so  old,  so  sure  of  herself,  so  determined  as 
Mrs.  Bilton,  notice.^^ 

"Give  her  notice .f^"  she  repeated. 

A  chill  ran  down  Anna-Felicitas's  spine.  Give  Mrs. 
Bilton  notice!  It  was  a  great,  a  breath-taking  idea, 
magnificent  in  its  assertion  of  independence,  of  rights; 
but  it  needed,  she  felt,  to  be  approached  with  caution. 
They  had  never  given  anybody  notice  in  their  lives,  and 
they  had  always  thought  it  must  be  a  most  painful 
thing  to  do — far,  far  worse  than  tipping.  Uncle  Arthur 
usedn't  to  mind  it  a  bit;  did  it,  indeed,  with  gusto. 
But  Aunt  Alice  hadn't  liked  it  at  all,  and  came  out  in  a 
cold  perspiration  and  bewailed  her  lot  to  them  and 
wished  that  people  would  behave  and  not  place  her  in 
such  a  painful  position. 

Mrs.  Bilton  couldn't  be  said  not  to  have  behaved. 
Quite  the  contrary.  She  had  behaved  too  persistently; 
and  they  had  to  endure  it  the  whole  twenty-four  hours. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        309 

For  Mrs.  Bilton  had  no  turn,  it  appeared,  in  spite  of 
what  she  had  said  at  Los  Angeles,  for  solitary  con- 
templation, and  after  the  confusion  of  the  first  night, 
when  once  she  had  had  time  to  envisage  the  situation 
thoroughly,  as  she  said,  she  had  found  that  to  sit  alone 
downstairs  in  the  uncertain  light  of  the  lanterns  while 
the  twins  went  to  bed  and  Mr.  Twist  wouldn't  come 
out  of  his  room,  was  not  good  for  her  psyche;  so  she 
had  followed  the  twins  upstairs,  and  continued  to 
read  the  young  girl's  diary  to  them  during  their  un- 
dressing and  till  the  noises  coming  from  their  beds 
convinced  her  that  it  was  useless  to  go  on  any  longer. 
And  that  morning,  the  morning  they  hid  in  the 
ditch,  she  had  even  done  this  while  they  were  getting 
up. 

"It  isn't  to  be  borne,"  said  Anna-Rose  under  her 
breath,  one  eye  on  Li  Koo's  ear  which,  a  little  in  front 
of  her,  seemed  slightly  slanted  backward  and  sideways 
in  the  direction  of  her  voice.  "And  why  should  it  be? 
We're  not  in  her  power." 

"No,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  also  under  her  breath 
and  also  watching  Li  Koo's  ear,  "but  it  feels  extraor- 
dinarily as  if  we  were." 

"Yes.  And  that's  intolerable.  And  it  forces  us  to 
do  silly  baby  things,  wholly  unsuited  either  to  our  age 
or  our  position.  Who  would  have  thought  we'd  ever 
hide  from  somebody  in  a  ditch  again!"  Anna-Rose's 
voice  was  almost  a  sob  at  the  humiliation. 

"It  all  comes  from  sleeping  in  the  same  room,"  said 
Anna-Felicitas.  "Nobody  can  stand  a  thing  that 
doesn't  end  at  night  either." 

"Of  course  they  can't,"  said  Anna-Rose.  "It  isn't 
fair.  If  you  have  to  have  a  person  all  day  you  oughtn't 
to  have  to  have  the  same  person  all  night.     Some  one 


310        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

else  should  step  in  and  relieve  you  then.  Just  as  they 
do  in  hospitals." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Mr.  Twist  ought  to. 
He  ought  to  remove  her  forcibly  from  our  room  by  mar- 
riage." 

"No  he  oughtn't,"  said  Anna-Rose  hastily,  "because 
we  can  remove  her  ourselves  by  the  simple  process  of 
giving  her  notice." 

"I  don't  believe  it's  simple,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
again  feeling  a  chill  trickling  down  her  spine. 

"Of  course  it  is.  We  just  go  to  her  very  politely, 
and  inform  her  that  the  engagement  is  terminated  on  a 
basis  of  mutual  esteem  but  inflexible  determination." 

"And  suppose  she  doesn't  stop  talking  enough  to 
hear?" 

"  Then  we'll  hand  it  to  her  in  writing." 

The  rest  of  the  way  they  walked  in  silence,  Anna-Rose 
with  her  chin  thrust  out  in  defiance,  Anna-Felicitas 
dragging  her  feet  along  with  a  certain  reluctance  and 
doubt. 

Mrs.  Bilton  had  finished  her  breakfast  when  they  got 
back,  having  seen  no  sense  in  letting  good  food  get  cold, 
and  was  ready  to  sit  and  chat  to  them  while  they  had 
theirs.  She  was  so  busy  telling  them  what  she  had  sup- 
posed they  were  probably  doing,  that  she  was  unable  to 
listen  to  their  attempted  account  of  what  they  had 
done.  Thus  they  were  saved  from  telling  humiliating 
and  youthful  fibs;  but  they  were  also  prevented,  as  by 
a  wall  of  rock,  from  getting  the  speech  through  to  her 
ear  that  Anna-Rose,  trembling  in  spite  of  her  defiance, 
had  ready  to  launch  at  her.  It  was  impossible  to  shout 
at  Mrs.  Bilton  in  the  way  Mr.  Twist,  when  in  extremity 
of  necessity,  had  done.  Ladies  didn't  shout;  especially 
not  when  they  were  giving  other  ladies  notice.     Anna- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        311 

Rose,  who  was  quite  cold  and  clammy  at  the  prospect 
of  her  speech,  couldn't  help  feeling  relieved  when  break- 
fast was  over  and  no  opportunity  for  it  had  been  given. 

"We'll  write  it,"  she  whispered  to  Anna-Felicitas 
beneath  the  cover  of  a  lively  account  Mrs.  Bilton  was 
giving  them,  a  propos  of  their  being  late  for  breakfast, 
of  the  time  it  took  her,  after  Mr.  Bilton's  passing,  to 
get  used  to  his  unpunctuality  at  meals. 

That  Mr.  Bilton,  who  had  breakfasted  and  dined  with 
her  steadily  for  years,  should  suddenly  leave  off  being 
punctual  freshly  astonished  her  every  day,  she  said. 
The  clock  struck,  yet  Mr.  Bilton  continued  late.  It 
was  poignant,  said  Mrs.  Bilton,  this  way  of  being  re- 
minded of  her  loss.  Each  day  she  would  instinctively 
expect;  each  day  would  come  the  stab  of  recollection. 
The  vacancy  these  non-appearances  had  made  in  her 
life  was  beyond  any  words  of  hers.  In  fact  she  didn't 
possess  such  words,  and  doubted  if  the  completest  dic- 
tionary did  either.  Everything  went  just  vacant,  she 
said.  No  need  any  more  to  hurry  down  in  the  morn- 
ing, so  as  to  be  behind  the  coffee  pot  half  a  minute  before 
the  gong  went  and  Mr.  Bilton  simultaneously  appeared. 
No  need  any  more  to  think  of  him  when  ordering  meals. 
No  need  any  more  to  eat  the  dish  he  had  been  so  fond 
of  and  she  had  found  so  difficult  to  digest,  Boston  baked 
beans  and  bacon;  yet  she  found  herself  ordering  it  con- 
tinually after  his  departure,  and  choking  memorially 
over  the  mouthfuls — "And  people  in  Europe,"  cried 
Mrs.  Bilton,  herself  struck  as  she  talked  by  this  ex- 
treme devotion,  "say  that  American  women  are  in- 
capable of  passion!" 

"We'll  write  it,"  whispered  Anna-Rose  to  Anna- 
Felicitas. 

"Write  what.^"  asked  Anna-Felicitas  abstractedly. 


312        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

who  as  usual  when  Mrs.  Bilton  narrated  her  reminis- 
cences was  absorbed  in  listening  to  them  and  trying  to 
get  some  clear  image  of  Mr.  Bilton. 

But  she  remembered  the  next  moment,  and  it  was 
like  waking  up  to  the  recollection  that  this  is  the  day 
you  have  to  have  a  tooth  pulled  out.  The  idea  of  not 
having  the  tooth  any  more,  of  being  free  from  it, 
charmed  and  thrilled  her,  but  how  painful,  how  alarm- 
ing was  the  prospect  of  pulling  it  out! 

There  was  one  good  thing  to  be  said  for  Mrs.  Bilton's 
talk,  and  that  was  that  under  its  voluminous  cover  they 
could  themselves  whisper  occasionally  to  each  other, 
Anna-Rose  decided  that  if  Mrs.  Bilton  didn't  notice 
that  they  whispered  neither  probably  would  she  notice 
if  she  wrote.  She  therefore  under  Mrs.  Bilton's  very 
nose  got  a  pencil  and  a  piece  of  paper,  and  with  many 
pauses  and  an  unsteady  hand  wrote  the  following: 

Deak  Mrs.  Bilton — ^For  some  time  past  my  sister  and  I  have 
felt  that  we  aren't  suited  to  you,  and  if  you  don't  mind  would  you 
mind  regarding  the  engagement  as  terminated?  We  hope  you 
won't  think  this  abrupt,  because  it  isn't  really,  for  we  seem  to  have 
lived  ages  since  you  came,  and  we've  been  thinking  this  over  ripely 
ever  since.  And  we  hope  you  won't  take  it  as  anything  personal 
either,  because  it  isn't  really.  It's  only  that  we  feel  we're  unsuitable, 
and  we're  sure  we'll  go  on  getting  more  and  more  unsuitable.  No- 
body can  help  being  unsuitable,  and  we're  fearfully  sorry.  But  on 
the  other  hand  we're  inflexible. — ^Yours  affectionately, 

Anna-Rose  and  Anna-Felicitas  Twinklbb. 

With  a  beating  heart  she  cautiously  pushed  the  letter 
across  the  table  under  cover  of  the  breakfast  dShris  to 
Anna-Felicitas,  who  read  it  with  a  beating  heart  and 
cautiously  pushed  it  back. 

Anna-Felicitas  felt  sure  Christopher  was  being  ter- 
ribly impetuous,  and  she  felt  sure  she  ought  to  stop  her. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        313 

But  what  a  joy  to  be  without  Mrs.  Bilton !  The  thought 
of  going  to  bed  in  the  placid  sluggishness  dear  to  her 
heart,  without  having  to  listen,  to  be  attentive,  to  re- 
member to  be  tidy  because  if  she  weren't  there  would 
be  no  room  for  Mrs.  Bilton's  things,  was  too  much  for 
her.  Authority  pursuing  her  into  her  bedroom  was 
what  she  had  found  most  diflScult  to  bear.  There  must 
be  respite.  There  must  be  intervals  in  every  activity 
or  endurance.  Even  the  liebe  Gotty  otherwise  so  inde- 
fatigable, had  felt  this  and  arranged  for  the  relaxation 
of  Sundays. 

She  pushed  the  letter  back  with  a  beating  heart,  and 
told  herself  that  she  couldn't  and  never  had  been  able 
to  stop  Christopher  when  she  was  in  this  mood  of  her 
chin  sticking  out.  What  could  she  do  in  face  of  such  a 
chin?  And  besides,  Mrs.  Bilton's  friends  must  be  miss- 
ing her  very  much  and  ought  to  have  her  back.  One 
should  always  live  only  with  one's  own  sort  of  people. 
Every  other  way  of  living,  Anna-Felicitas  was  sure 
even  at  this  early  stage  of  her  existence,  was  bound  to 
come  to  a  bad  end.  One  could  be  fond  of  almost  any- 
body, she  held,  if  they  were  somewhere  else.  Even  of 
Uncle  Arthur.  Even  he  somehow  seemed  softened  by 
distance.  But  for  living-together  purposes  there  was 
only  one  kind  of  people  possible,  and  that  was  one's 
own  kind.  Unexpected  and  various  were  the  exteriors 
of  one's  own  kind  and  the  places  one  found  them  in, 
but  one  always  knew  them.  One  felt  comfortable  with 
them  at  once;  comfortable  and  placid.  Whatever  else 
Mrs.  Bilton  might  be  feeling  she  wasn't  feeling  placid. 
That  was  evident;  and  it  was  because  she  too  wasn't 
with  her  own  kind.  With  her  eyes  fixed  nervously  on 
Mrs.  Bilton  who  was  talking  on  happily,  Anna-Felicitas 
reasoned  with  herself  in  the  above  manner  as  she  pushed 


314        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

back  the  letter,  instead  of,  as  at  the  back  of  her  mind 
she  felt  she  ought  to  have  done,  tearing  it  up. 

Anna-Rose  folded  it  and  addressed  it  to  Mrs.  Bilton. 
Then  she  got  up  and  held  it  out  to  her. 

Anna-Felicitas  got  up  too,  her  inside  feeling  strangely 
unsteady  and  stirred  round  and  round. 

"Would  you  mind  reading  this?"  said  Anna-Rose 
faintly  to  Mrs.  Bilton,  who  took  the  letter  mechanically 
and  held  it  in  her  hand  without  apparently  noticing  it, 
so  much  engaged  was  she  by  what  she  was  saying. 

"We're  going  out  a  moment  to  speak  to  Mr.  Twist," 
Anna-Rose  then  said,  making  for  the  door  and  beckon- 
ing to  Anna-Felicitas,  who  still  stood  hesitating. 

She  slipped  out;  and  Anna-Felicitas,  suddenly  panic- 
stricken  lest  she  should  be  buttonholed  all  by  herself, 
fled  after  her. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

MR.  TWIST,  his  mind  at  ease,  was  in  the  charm- 
ing room  that  was  to  be  the  tea-room.  It 
was  full  of  scattered  fittings  and  the  noise  of 
hammering,  but  even  so  anybody  could  see  what  a  de- 
lightful place  it  would  presently  turn  into. 

The  Open  Arms  was  to  make  a  specialty  of  wet  days. 
Those  were  the  days,  those  consecutive  days  of  down- 
pour that  came  in  the  winter  and  lasted  without  inter- 
ruption for  a  fortnight  at  a  time,  when  visitors  in  the 
hotels  were  bored  beyond  expression  and  ready  to  wel- 
come anything  that  could  distract  them  for  an  hour  from 
the  dripping  of  the  rain  on  the  windows.  Bridge  was 
their  one  solace,  and  they  played  it  from  after  breakfast 
till  bedtime;  but  on  the  fourth  or  fifth  day  of  doing  this, 
just  the  mere  steady  sitting  became  grievous  to  them. 
They  ached  with  weariness.  They  wilted  with  bore- 
dom. All  their  natural  kindness  got  damped  out  of 
them,  and  they  were  cross.  Even  when  they  won  they 
were  cross,  and  when  they  lost  it  was  really  distressing. 
They  wouldn't,  of  course,  have  been  in  California  at  all 
at  such  a  time  if  it  were  possible  to  know  beforehand 
when  the  rains  would  begin,  but  one  never  did  know, 
and  often  it  was  glorious  weather  right  up  to  and  beyond 
Christmas.  And  then  how  glorious!  What  a  golden 
place  of  light  and  warmth  to  be  in,  while  in  the  East 
one's  friends  were  being  battered  by  blizzards. 

Mr.  Twist  intended  to  provide  a  break  in  the  day  each 
afternoon  for  these  victims  of  the  rain.     He  would  come 

315 


316        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

to  their  rescue.  He  made  up  his  mind,  clear  and  firm 
on  such  matters,  that  it  should  become  the  habit  of 
these  unhappy  people  during  the  bad  weather  to  motor 
out  to  The  Open  Arms  for  tea;  and,  full  of  forethought, 
he  had  had  a  covered  way  made,  by  which  one  could  get 
out  of  a  car  and  into  the  house  without  being  touched 
by  a  drop  of  rain,  and  he  had  had  a  huge  open  fireplace 
made  across  the  end  of  the  tea-room,  which  would 
crackle  and  blaze  a  welcome  that  would  cheer  the  most 
dispirited  arrival.  The  cakes,  at  all  times  wonderful, 
were  on  wet  days  to  be  more  than  wonderful.  Li  Koo 
had  a  secret  receipt,  given  him,  he  said,  by  his  mother, 
for  cakes  of  a  quite  peculiar  and  original  charm,  and 
these  were  to  be  reserved  for  the  rainy  season  only,  and 
be  made  its  specialty.  They  were  to  become  known 
and  endeared  to  the  public  under  the  brief  designation 
of  Wet  Day  Cakes.  Mr.  Twist  felt  there  was  some- 
thing thoroughly  American  about  this  name — ^plain 
and  business-like,  and  attractively  in  contrast  to  the 
subtle,  the  almost  immoral  exquisiteness  of  the  article 
itself.  This  cake  had  been  one  of  those  produced  by 
Li  Koo  from  the  folds  of  his  garments  the  day  in  Los 
Angeles,  and  Mr.  Twist  had  happened  to  be  the  one  of 
his  party  who  ate  it.  He  therefore  knew  what  he  was 
doing  when  he  decided  to  call  it  and  its  like  simply  Wet 
Day  Cakes. 

The  twins  found  him  experimenting  with  a  fire  in  the 
fireplace  so  as  to  be  sure  it  didn't  smoke,  and  the  archi- 
tect and  he  were  in  their  shirt  sleeves,  deftly  manipu- 
lating wood  shavings  and  logs.  There  was  such  a 
hammering  being  made  by  the  workmen  fixing  in  the 
latticed  windows,  and  such  a  crackling  being  made  by 
the  logs  Mr.  Twist  and  the  architect  kept  on  throwing 
on  the  fire,  that  only  from  the  sudden  broad  smile  on  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        317 

architect's  face  as  he  turned  to  pick  up  another  log  did 
Mr.  Twist  realize  that  something  that  hadn't  to  do 
with  work  was  happening  behind  his  back. 

He  looked  round  and  saw  the  Annas  picking  their 
way  toward  him.     They  seemed  in  a  hurry. 

"Hello,"  he  called  out. 

They  made  no  reply  to  this,  but  continued  hurriedly 
to  pick  their  way  among  the  obstacles  in  their  path. 
They  appeared  to  be  much  perturbed.  What,  he  won- 
dered, had  they  done  with  Mrs.  Bilton.^^  He  soon 
knew. 

"We've  given  Mrs.  Bilton  notice,"  panted  Anna-Rose 
as  soon  as  she  got  near  enough  to  his  ear  for  him  to  hear 
her  in  the  prevailing  noise. 

Her  face,  as  usual  when  she  was  moved  and  excited, 
was  scarlet,  her  eyes  looking  bluer  and  brighter  than 
ever  by  contrast. 

"We  simply  can't  stand  it  any  longer,"  she  went  on 
as  Mr.  Twist  only  stared  at  her. 

"And  you  wouldn't  either  if  you  were  us,"  she  con- 
tinued, the  more  passionately  as  he  still  didn't  say  any- 
thing. 

"Of  course,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  taking  a  high  line, 
though  her  heart  was  full  of  doubt,  "it's  your  fault 
really.  We  could  have  borne  it  if  we  hadn't  had  to 
have  her  at  night." 

"  Come  outside,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  walking  toward  the 
door  that  led  on  to  the  verandah. 

They  followed  him,  Anna-Rose  shaking  with  excite- 
ment, Anna-Felicitas  trying  to  persuade  herself  that 
they  had  acted  in  the  only  way  consistent  with  real 
wisdom. 

The  architect  stood  with  a  log  in  each  hand  looking 
after  them  and  smiling  all'  by  himself.     There  was 


318        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

sometliing  about  the  Twinklers  that  lightened  his  heart 
whenever  he  caught  sight  of  them.  He  and  his  fellow 
experts  had  deplored  the  absence  of  opportunities  since 
Mrs.  Bilton  came  of  developing  the  friendship  begun 
the  first  day,  and  talked  of  them  on  their  way  home  in 
the  afternoons  with  affectionate  and  respectful  familiar- 
ity as  The  Cutes. 

"Now,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  having  passed  through  the 
verandah  and  led  the  twins  to  the  bottom  of  the  garden 
where  he  turned  and  faced  them,  "perhaps  you'll  tell 
me  exactly  what  you've  done." 

"You  should  rather  inquire  what  Mrs.  Bilton  has 
done,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  pulling  herself  up  as  straight 
and  tall  as  she  would  go.  She  couldn't  but  perceive 
that  the  excess  of  Christopher's  emotion  was  putting 
her  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  matter  of  dignity. 

"I  can  guess  pretty  much  what  she  has  done,"  said 
Mr.  Twist. 

"You  can't — ^you  can't,"  burst  out  Anna-Rose. 
"Nobody  could — nobody  ever  could — who  hadn't  been 
with  her  day  and  night." 

"She's  ju^  been  Mrs.  Bilton,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 
lighting  a  cigarette  to  give  himself  an  appearance  of 
calm. 

"Exactly,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "So  you  won't  be 
surprised  at  our  having  just  been  Twinklers." 

"Oh  Lord,"  groaned  Mr.  Twist,  in  spite  of  his. ciga- 
rette, "oh,  Lord." 

"We've  given  Mrs.  Bilton  notice,"  continued  Anna- 
Felicitas,  making  a  gesture  of  great  dignity  with  her 
hand,  "because  we  find  with  regret  that  she  and  we  are 
incompatible." 

"Was  she  aware  that  you  were  giving  it  her?"  asked 
Mr.  Twist,  endeavouring  to  keep  calm. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        319 

"We  wrote  it." 

"Has  she  read  it?" 

"We  put  it  into  her  hand,  and  then  came  away  so 
that  she  should  have  an  opportunity  of  quietly  consider- 
ingit." 

"You  shouldn't  have  left  us  alone  with  her  like  this," 
burst  out  Anna-Rose  again,  "you  shouldn't  really. 
It  was  cruel,  it  was  wrong,  leaving  us  high  and  dry — 
never  seeing  you — leaving  us  to  be  talked  to  day  and 
night — ^to  be  read  to — would  you  like  to  be  read  to  while 
you're  undressing  by  somebody  still  in  all  their  clothes? 
We've  never  been  able  to  open  our  mouths.  We've 
been  taken  into  the  field  for  our  airing  and  brought  in 
again  as  if  we  were  newborns,  or  people  in  prams,  or 
flocks  and  herds,  or  prisoners  suspected  of  wanting  to 
escape.  We  haven't  had  a  minute  to  ourselves  day  or 
night.  There  hasn't  been  a  single  exchange  of  ideas, 
not  a  shred  of  recognition  that  we're  grown  up.  We've 
been  followed,  watched,  talked  to — oh,  oh,  how  awful 
it  has  been!  Oh,  oh,  how  awful!  Forced  to  be  dumb 
for  days — closing  our  power  of  speech " 

"Anna-Rose  Twinkler,"  interrupted  Mr.  Twist 
sternly,  "you  haven't  lost  it.  And  you  not  only  have- 
n't, but  that  power  of  yours  has  increased  tenfold  during 
its  days  of  rest." 

He  spoke  with  the  exasperation  in  his  voice  that  they 
had  already  heard  several  times  since  they  landed  in 
America.  Each  time  it  took  them  aback,  for  Mr. 
Twist  was  firmly  fixed  in  their  minds  as  the  kindest  and 
gentlest  of  creatures,  and  these  sudden  kickings  of  his 
each  time  astonished  them. 

On  this  occasion,  however,  only  Anna-Rose  was  aston- 
ished. Anna-Felicitas  all  along  had  had  an  uncom- 
fortable conviction  in  the  depth  of  her  heart  that  Mr. 


320        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Twist  wouldn't  like  what  they  had  done.  He  would  be 
upset,  she  felt,  as  her  reluctant  feet  followed  Anna-Rose 
in  search  of  him.  He  would  be,  she  was  afraid,  very 
much  upset.  And  so  he  was.  He  was  appalled  by 
what  had  happened.  Lose  Mrs.  Bilton?  Lose  the 
very  foundation  of  the  party's  respectability?  And 
how  could  he  find  somebody  else  at  the  eleventh  hour, 
and  where  and  how  could  the  twins  and  he  live,  un- 
chaperoned  as  they  would  be,  till  he  had.^^  What  a 
peculiar  talent  these  Annas  had  for  getting  themselves 
and  him  into  impossible  situations!  Of  course  at  their 
age  they  ought  to  be  safe  under  the  wing  of  a  wise 
and  unusually  determined  mother.  Well,  poor  little 
wretches,  they  couldn't  help  not  being  under  it;  but  that 
aunt  of  theirs  ought  to  have  srtuck  to  them — faced  up  to 
her  husband,  and  stuck  to  them. 

"I  suppose,"  he  said  angrily,  "being  you  and  not 
being  able  to  see  farther  than  the  ends  of  your  noses, 
you  haven't  got  any  sort  of  an  idea  of  what  you've 
done." 

"We—" 

"She " 

"And  I  don't  suppose  it's  much  use  my  trying  to 
explain,  either.  Hasn't  it  ever  occurred  to  you,  though 
I'd  be  real  grateful  if  you'd  give  me  information  on  this 
point — ^that  maybe  you  don't  know  everything?" 

"She " 

"We " 

"And  that  till  you  do  know  everything,  which  I  take 
it  won't  be  for  some  time  yet,  judging  from  the  samples 
I've  had  of  your  perspicacity,  you'd  do  well  not  to  act 
without  first  asking  some  one's  advice?  Mine,  for 
instance?" 

"She "  began  Anna-Rose  again;  but  her  voice 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        321 

was  trembling,  for  she  couldn't  bear  Mr.  Twist's  anger. 
She  was  too  fond  of  him.  When  he  looked  at  her  like 
that,  her  own  anger  was  blown  out  as  if  by  an  icy 
draught  and  she  could  only  look  back  at  him  piteously. 

But  Anna-Felicitas,  being  free  from  the  weaknesses 
inherent  in  adoration,  besides  continuing  to  perceive 
how  Christopher's  feelings  put  her  at  a  disadvantage, 
drew  Mr.  Twist's  attention  from  her  by  saying  with 
gentleness,  "But  why  add  to  the  general  discomfort 
by  being  bitter?" 

"Bitter!  "cried  Mr.  Twist,  still  glaring  at  Anna-Rose. 

"Do  you  dispute  that  God  made  us.^^"  inquired  Anna- 
Feliticas,  placing  herself  as  it  were  like  a  shield  between 
Mr.  Twist's  wrathful  concentration  on  Christopher  and 
that  unfortunate  young  person's  emotion. 

"See  here,"  said  Mr.  Twist  turning  on  her,  "I'm  not 
going  to  argue  with  you — not  about  anything.  Least 
of  all  about  God." 

"I  only  wanted  to  point  out  to  you,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  mildly,  "that  that  being  so,  and  we  not  able 
to  help  it,  there  seems  little  use  in  being  bitter  with  us 
because  we're  not  different.  In  regard  to  anything 
fundamental  about  us  that  you  deplore  I'm  afraid  we 
must  refer  you  to  Providence." 

"Say,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  not  in  the  least  appeased  by 
this  reasoning  but,  as  Anna-Felicitas  couldn't  but 
notice,  quite  the  contrary,  "used  you  to  talk  like  this 
to  that  Uncle  Arthur  of  yours  .^^  Because  if  you  did, 
upon  my  word  I  don't  wonder " 

But  what  Mr.  Twist  didn't  wonder  was  fortunately 
concealed  from  the  twins  by  the  appearance  at  that 
moment  of  Mrs.  Bilton,  who,  emerging  from  the  shades 
of  the  verandah  and  looking  about  her,  caught  sight  of 
them  and  came  rapidly  down  the  garden. 


322        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

There  was  no  escape. 

They  watched  her  bearing  down  on  them  without  a 
word.  It  was  a  most  unpleasant  moment.  Mr.  Twist 
re-lit  his  cigarette  to  give  himself  a  countenance,  but 
the  thought  of  all  that  Mrs.  Bilton  would  probably  say 
was  dreadful  to  him,  and  his  hand  couldn't  help  shaking 
a  little.  Anna-Rose  showed  a  guilty  tendency  to  slink 
behind  him.  Anna-Felicitas  stood  motionless,  awaiting 
the  deluge.  All  Mr.  Twist's  sympathies  were  with  Mrs. 
Bilton,  and  he  was  ashamed  that  she  should  have  been 
treated  so.  He  felt  that  nothing  she  could  say  would 
be  severe  enough,  and  he  was  extraordinarily  angry  with 
the  Annas.  Yet  when  he  saw  the  injured  lady  bearing 
down  on  them,  if  he  only  could  he  would  have  picked 
up  an  Anna  under  each  arm,  guilty  as  they  were,  and 
run  and  run;  so  much  did  he  prefer  them  to  Mrs.  Bilton 
and  so  terribly  did  he  want,  at  this  moment,  to  be  some- 
where where  that  lady  wasn't. 

There  they  stood  then,  anxiouSiy  watching  the  ap- 
proaching figure,  and  the  letter  in  Mrs.  Bilton's  hand 
bobbed  up  and  down  as  she  walked,  white  and  con- 
spicuous in  the  sun  against  her  black  dress.  What  was 
their  amazement  to  see  as  she  drew  nearer  that  she  was 
looking  just  as  pleasant  as  ever.  They  stared  at  her 
with  mouths  falling  open.  Was  it  possible,  thought  the 
twins,  that  she  was  longing  to  leave  but  hadn't  liked  to 
say  so,  and  the  letter  had  come  as  a  release .^^  Was  it 
possible,  thought  Mr.  Twist  with  a  leap  of  hope  in  his 
heart,  that  she  was  taking  the  letter  from  a  non-serious 
point  of  view? 

And  Mr.  Twist,  to  his  infinite  relief,  was  right.  For 
Mrs.  Bilton,  woman  of  grit  and  tenacity,  was  not  in  the 
habit  of  allowing  herself  to  be  dislodged  or  even  dis- 
couraged.    This  was  the  opening  sentence  of  her  re- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        323 

marks  when  she  had  arrived,  smiling,  in  their  midst. 
Had  she  not  explained  the  first  night  that  she  was  one 
who,  having  put  her  hand  to  the  plough,  held  on  to  it 
however  lively  the  movements  of  the  plough  might  be? 
She  would  not  conceal  from  them,  she  said,  that  even 
Mr.  Bilton  had  not,  especially,  at  first,  been  entirely 
without  such  movements.  He  had  settled  down,  how- 
ever, on  finding  he  could  trust  her  to  know  better  than 
he  did  what  he  wanted.  Don't  wise  wives  always?  she 
inquired.  And  the  result  had  been  that  no  man  ever 
had  a  more  devoted  wife  while  he  was  alive,  or  a  more 
devoted  widow  after  he  wasn't.  She  had  told  him  one 
day,  when  he  was  drawing  near  the  latter  condition 
and  she  was  conversing  with  him,  as  was  only  right,  on 
the  subject  of  wills,  and  he  said  that  his  affairs  had  gone 
wrong  and  as  far  as  he  could  see  she  would  be  left  a 
widow  and  that  was  about  all  she  would  be  left — she  had 
told  him  that  if  it  was  any  comfort  to  him  to  know  it, 
he  might  rely  on  it  that  he  would  have  the  most  de- 
voted widow  any  man  had  ever  had,  and  he  said — ^Mr. 
Bilton  had  odd  fancies,  especially  toward  the  end — ^that 
a  widow  was  the  one  thing  a  man  never  could  have  be- 
cause he  wasn't  there  by  the  time  he  had  got  her.  Yes, 
Mr.  Bilton  had  odd  fancies.  And  if  she  had  managed, 
as  she  did  manage,  to  steer  successfully  among  them,  he 
being  a  man  of  ripe  parts  and  character,  was  it  likely 
that  encountering  odd  fancies  in  two  very  young  and  un- 
formed girls — oh,  it  wasn't  their  fault  that  they  were 
unformed,  it  was  merely  because  they  hadn't  had  time 
enough  yet — she  would  be  unable,  experienced  as  she 
was,  to  steer  among  them  too?  Besides,  she  had  a 
heart  for  orphans;  orphans  and  dumb  animals  always 
had  had  a  special  appeal  for  her.  "  No,  no,  Mr.  Twist," 
Mrs.  Bilton  woimd  up,  putting  a  hand  affectionately  on 


324        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose's  shoulder  as  a  more  convenient  one  than 
Anna-Felicitas's,  "my  young  charges  aren't  going  to 
be  left  in  the  lurch,  you  may  rely  on  that.  I  don't 
undertake  a  duty  without  carrying  it  out.  Why,  I  feel 
a  lasting  affection  for  them  already.  We've  made  real 
progress  these  few  days  in  intimacy.  And  I  just  love 
to  sit  and  listen  to  all  their  fresh  young  chatter." 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THIS  was  the  last  of  Mr.  Twist's  worries  be- 
fore the  opening  day. 
Remorseful  that  he  should  have  shirked  help- 
ing the  Annas  to  bear  Mrs.  Bilton,  besides  having  had  a 
severe  fright  on  perceiving  how  near  his  shirking  had 
brought  the  party  to  disaster,  he  now  had  his  meals  with 
the  others  and  spent  the  evenings  with  them  as  well. 
He  was  immensely  grateful  to  Mrs.  Bilton.  Her  grit  had 
saved  them.  He  esteemed  and  respected  her.  Indeed, 
he  shook  hands  with  her  then  and  there  at  the  end  of 
her  speech,  and  told  her  he  did,  and  the  least  he  could 
do  after  that  was  to  come  to  dinner.  But  this  very 
genuine  appreciation  didn't  prevent  his  finding  her  at 
close  quarters  what  Anna-Rose,  greatly  chastened,  now 
only  called  temperately  "a  little  much,"  and  the  result 
was  a  really  frantic  hurrying  on  of  the  work.  He  had 
rather  taken,  those  first  four  days  of  being  relieved  of 
responsibility  in  regard  to  the  twins,  to  finnicking  with 
details,  to  dwelling  lovingly  on  them  with  a  sense  of 
having  a  margin  to  his  time,  and  things  accordingly 
had  considerably  slowed  down;  but  after  twenty-four 
hours  of  Mrs.  Bilton  they  hurried  up  again,  and  after 
forty-eight  of  her  the  speed  was  headlong.  At  the  end 
of  forty-eight  hours  it  seemed  to  Mr.  Twist  more  urgent 
than  anything  he  had  ever  known  that  he  should  get  out 
of  the  shanty,  get  into  somewhere  with  space  in  it,  and 
sound-proof  walls — lots  of  walls — and  long  passages 
between    people's    doors;    and  before  the    rooms    in 

325 


326        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

the  inn  were  anything  like  finished  he  insisted  on 
moving  in. 

"You  must  turn  to  on  this  last  lap  and  help  fix  them 
up,"  he  said  to  the  twins.  "It'll  be  a  bit  uncomfortable 
at  first,  but  you  must  just  take  off  your  coats  to  it  and 
not  mind." 

Mind?  Turn  to.?  It  was  what  they  were  languishing 
for.  It  was  what,  in  the  arid  hours  under  the  ilex  tree, 
collected  so  ignominiously  round  Mrs.  Bilton's  knee, 
they  had  been  panting  for,  like  thirsty  dogs  with  their 
tongues  out.  And  such  is  the  peculiar  blessedness  of 
work  that  instantly,  the  moment  there  was  any  to  be 
done,  everything  that  wa^  tangled  and  irritating  fell 
quite  naturally  into  its  proper  place.  Magically  life 
straightened  itself  out  smooth,  and  left  off  being  diffi- 
cult. Arbeit  und  Liebe,  as  their  mother  used  to  say, 
dropping  into  German  whenever  a  sentence  seemed  to 
her  to  sound  better  that  way — Arbeit  und  Liebe:  these 
were  the  two  great  things  of  life;  the  two  great  angels, 
as  she  assured  them,  under  whose  spread-out  wings  lay 
happiness. 

With  a  hungry  zeal,  with  the  violent  energy  of  re- 
action, the  Annas  fell  upon  work.  They  started  un- 
packing. All  the  things  they  had  bought  in  Acapulco, 
the  linen,  the  china,  the  teaspoons,  the  feminine  touches 
that  had  been  piled  up  waiting  in  the  barn,  were  pulled 
out  and  undone  and  carried  indoors.  They  sorted,  and 
they  counted,  and  they  arranged  on  shelves.  Anna- 
Rose  flew  in  and  out  with  her  arms  full.  Anna-Felicitas 
slouched  zealously  after  her,  her  arms  full  too  when  she 
started,  but  not  nearly  so  full  when  she  got  there  owing 
to  the  way  things  had  of  slipping  through  them  and 
dropping  on  to  the  floor.  They  were  in  a  blissful,  busy 
confusion.     Their  faces  shone  with  heat  and  happiness. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        327 

Here  was  liberty;  here  was  freedom;  here  was  true  dig- 
nity— Arbeit  und  Liehe.     .     .     . 

Wben  Mr.  Twist,  as  he  did  whenever  he  could,  came 
and  looked  on  for  a  moment  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  with 
his  hat  on  the  back  of  his  head  and  his  big,  benevolent 
spectacles  so  kind,  Anna-Rose's  cup  seemed  full.  Her 
dimple  never  disappeared  for  a  moment.  It  was  there 
all  day  long  now;  and  even  when  she  was  asleep  it  still 
lurked  in  the  corner  of  her  mouth.     Arbeit  und  Liebe, 

Immense  was  the  reaction  of  self-respect  that  took 
hold  of  the  twins.  They  couldn't  believe  they  were  the 
people  who  had  been  so  crude  and  ill-conditioned  as  to 
hide  Mrs.  Bilton's  belongings,  and  actually  finally  to 
hide  themselves.  How  absurd.  How  like  children. 
How  unpardonably  undignified.  Anna-Rose  held  forth 
volubly  to  this  effect  while  she  arranged  the  china,  and 
Anna-Felicitas  listened  assentingly,  with  a  kind  of 
grave,  ashamed  sheepishness. 

The  result  of  this  reaction  was  that  Mrs.  Bilton, 
whose  pressure  on  them  was  relieved  by  the  necessity 
of  her  too  being  in  several  places  at  once,  and  who  was 
displaying  her  customary  grit,  now  became  the  definite 
object  of  their  courtesy.  They  were  the  mistresses  of 
a  house,  they  began  to  realize,  and  as  such  owed  her 
every  consideration.  This  bland  attitude  was  greatly 
helped  by  their  not  having  to  sleep  with  her  any  more, 
and  they  found  that  the  mere  coming  fresh  to  her  each 
morning  made  them  feel  polite  and  well-disposed.  Be- 
sides, they  wiere  thoroughly  and  finally  grown-up  now, 
Anna-Rose  declared — ^never,  never  to  lapse  again.  They 
had  had  their  lesson,  she  said,  gone  through  a  crisis, 
and  done  that  which  Aunt  Alice  used  to  say  people  did 
after  severe  trials,  aged  considerably. 

Anna-Felicitas  wasn't  quite  so  sure.     Her  own  recent 


328        CHEISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

behaviour  had  shaken  and  shocked  her  too  much.  Who 
would  have  thought  she  would  have  gone  like  that? 
Gone  all  to  pieces,  back  to  sheer  naughtiness,  on  the 
first  provocation?  It  was  quite  easy,  she  reflected  while 
she  worked,  and  cups  kept  on  detaching  themselves 
mysteriously  from  her  fingers,  and  tables  tumbling  over 
at  her  approach,  to  be  polite  and  considerate  to  some- 
body you  saw  very  little  of,  and  even,  as  she  found  her- 
self doing,  to  get  fond  of  the  person;  but  suppose  cir- 
cumstances threw  one  again  into  the  person's  continual 
society,  made  one  again  have  to  sleep  in  the  same 
room?  Anna-Felicitas  doubted  whether  it  would  be 
possible  for  her  to  stand  such  a  test,  in  spite  of  her 
earnest  desire  to  behave;  she  doubted,  indeed,  whether 
anybody  ever  did  stand  that  test  successfully.  Look 
at  husbands. 

Meanwhile  there  seemed  no  likelihood  of  its  being 
applied  again.  Each  of  them  had  now  a  separate  bed- 
room, and  Mrs.  Bilton  had,  in  the  lavish  American 
fashion,  her  own  bathroom,  so  that  even  at  that  point 
there  was  no  collision.  The  twins'  rooms  were  con- 
nected by  a  bathroom  all  to  themselves,  with  no  other 
door  into  it  except  the  doors  from  their  bedrooms,  and 
Mr.  Twist,  who  dwelt  discreetly  at  the  other  end  of  the 
house,  also  had  a  bathroom  of  his  own.  It  seemed  as 
natural  for  American  architects  to  drop  bathrooms 
about,  thought  Anna-Rose,  as  for  the  little  clouds  in 
the  psalms  to  drop  fatness.  They  shed  them  just  as 
easily,  and  the  results  were  just  as  refreshing.  To  i>er- 
sons  hailing  from  Pomerania,  a  place  arid  of  bathrooms, 
it  was  the  last  word  of  luxury  and  comfort  to  have  one's 
own.  Their  pride  in  theirs  amused  Mr.  Twist,  used 
from  childhood  to  these  civilized  arrangements;  but 
then,  as  they  pointed  out  to  him,  he  hadn't  lived  in 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        3£9 

Pomerania,  where  nothing  stood  between  you  and  being 
dirty  except  the  pump. 

But  it  wasn't  only  the  bathrooms  that  made  the  inn 
as  planned  by  Mr.  Twist  and  the  architect  seem  to  the 
twins  the  most  perfect,  the  most  wonderful  magic  little 
house  in  the  world:  the  intelligent  American  spirit  was 
in  every  corner,  and  it  was  full  of  clever,  simple  devices 
for  saving  labour — so  full  that  it  almost  seemed  to  the 
Annas  as  if  it  would  get  up  quite  unaided  at  six  every 
morning  and  do  itself;  and  they  were  sure  that  if  the 
smallest  encouragement  were  given  to  the  kitchen-stove 
it  would  cook  and  dish  up  a  dinner  all  alone.  Every- 
thing in  the  house  was  on  these  lines.  The  arrange- 
ments for  serving  innumerable  teas  with  ease  were 
admirable.  They  were  marvels  of  economy  and  clever 
thinking-out.  The  architect  was  surprised  at  the  at- 
tention and  thought  Mr.  Twi^  concentrated  on  this 
particular  part  of  the  future  housekeeping.  "You 
seem  sheer  crazy  on  teas,"  he  remarked;  to  which  Mr. 
Twi^  merely  replied  that  he  was. 

The  last  few  days  before  the  opening  were  as  full  of 
present  joy  and  promise  of  yet  greater  joys  to  come  as 
the  last  few  days  of  a  happy  betrothal.  They  reminded 
Anna-Felicitas  of  those  days  in  April,  those  enchanting 
days  she  had  always  loved  the  best,  when  the  bees  get 
busy  for  the  first  time,  and  suddenly  there  are  wall- 
flowers and  a  flowering  currant  bush  and  the  sound  of 
the  lawn  being  mown  and  the  smell  of  cut  grass.  How 
one's  heart  leaps  up  to  greet  them,  she  thought.  What 
a  thrill  of  delight  rushes  through  one's  body,  of  new  hope, 
of  delicious  expectation. 

Even  Li  Koo,  the  wooden-faced,  the  brief  and  rare  of 
speech,  seemed  to  feel  the  prevailing  satisfaction  and 
harmony  and  could  be  heard  in  the  evenings  singing 


330        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

strange  songs  among  his  pots.  And  what  he  was  sing- 
ing, only  nobody  knew  it,  were  soft  Chinese  hymns  of 
praise  of  the  two  white-lily  girls,  whose  hair  was  woven 
sunhght,  and  whose  eyes  were  deep  and  blue  even  as  the 
waters  that  washed  about  the  shores  of  his  father's 
dwelling-place.  For  Li  Koo,  the  impassive  and  inarticu- 
late, in  secret  seethed  with  passion.  Which  was  why 
his  cakes  were  so  wonderful.  He  had  to  express  himself 
somehow. 

But  while  up  on  their  sun-lit,  eucalyptus-crowned 
slopes  Mr.  Twist  and  his  party — ^he  always  thought  of 
them  as  his  party — ^were  innocently  and  happily  busy, 
full  of  hopefulness  and  mutual  goodwill,  down  in  the 
town  and  in  the  houses  scattered  over  the  lovely  coun- 
try round  the  town,  people  were  talking.  Everybody 
knew  about  the  house  Teapot  Twist  was  doing  up,  for 
the  daily  paper  had  told  them  that  Mr.  Edward  A. 
Twist  had  bought  the  long  uninhabited  farmhouse  in 
Pepper  Lane  known  as  Batt's,  and  was  converting  it 
into  a  Httle  ventre-d-terre  for  his  widowed  mother — 
launching  once  more  into  French,  as  though  there  were 
something  about  Mr.  Twist  magnetic  to  that  language. 
Everybody  knew  this,  and  it  was  perfectly  natural  for 
a  well-off  Easterner  to  have  a  little  place  out  West, 
even  if  the  choice  of  the  little  place  was  whimsical. 
But  what  about  the  Miss  Twinklers.^  Who  and  what 
were  they.^^    And  also.  Why? 

There  were  three  weeks  between  the  departure  of  the 
Twist  party  from  the  Cosmopolitan  and  the  opening  of 
the  inn,  and  in  that  time  much  had  been  done  in  the 
way  of  conjecture.  The  first  waves  of  it  flowed  out 
from  the  Cosmopolitan,  and  were  met  almost  at  once 
by  waves  flowing  in  from  the  town.  Good-natured 
curiosity  gave  place  to  excited  curiosity  when  the  ru- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        331 

mour  got  about  that  the  Cosmopolitan  had  been  obhged 
to  ask  Mr.  Twist  to  take  his  entourage  somewhere  else. 
Was  it  possible  the  cute  little  girls,  so  well  known  by 
sight  on  Main  Street  going  from  shop  to  shop,  were 
secretly  scandalous.^  It  seemed  almost  unbelievable, 
but  luckily  nothing  was  really  unbelievable. 

The  manager  of  the  hotel,  dropped  in  upon  casually 
by  one  guest  after  the  other,  and  interviewed  as  well 
by  determined  gentlemen  from  the  local  press,  was  not 
to  be  drawn.  His  reserve  was  'most  interesting.  Miss 
Heap  knitted  and  knitted  and  was  persistently  enig- 
matic. Her  silence  was  most  exciting.  On  the  other 
hand,  Mrs.  Ridding's  attitude  was  merely  one  of  con- 
tempt, dismissing  the  Twinklers  with  a  heavy  gesture. 
Why  think  or  trouble  about  a  pair  of  chits  like  that.^^ 
They  had  gone;  Albert  was  quiet  again;  and  wasn't 
that  the  gong  for  dinner  .^^ 

But  doubts  as  to  the  private  morals  of  the  Twist 
entourage  presently  were  superseded  by  much  graver 
and  more  perturbing  doubts.  Nobody  knew  when 
exactly  this  development  took  place.  Acapulco  had 
been  enjoying  the  first  set  of  doubts.  There  was  no 
denying  that  doubts  about  somebody  else's  morals 
were  not  unpleasant.  They  did  give  one,  if  one  exam- 
ined one's  sensations  carefully,  a  distinct  agreeable 
tickle;  they  did  add  the  kick  to  lives  which,  if  they  had 
been  virtuous  for  a  very  long  time  like  the  lives  of  the 
Riddings,  or  virgin  for  a  very  long  time  like  the  life  of 
Miss  Heap,  were  apt  to  be  flat.  But  from  the  doubts 
that  presently  appeared  and  overshadowed  the  earlier 
ones,  one  got  nothing  but  genuine  discomfort  and  un- 
easiness. Nobody  knew  how  or  when  they  started. 
Quite  suddenly  they  were  there. 

This  was  in  the  November  before  America's  coming 


332        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

into  the  war.  The  feeling  in  Acapulco  was  violently 
anti-German.  The  great  majority  of  the  inhabitants, 
permanent  and  temporary,  were  deeply  concerned  at 
the  conduct  of  their  country  in  not  having,  immediately 
after  the  torpedoing  of  the  Lusitania^  joined  the  Allies. 
They  found  it  difficult  to  understand,  and  were  puzzled 
and  suspicious,  as  well  as  humiliated  in  their  national 
pride.  Germans  who  lived  in  the  neighbourhood,  or 
who  came  across  from  the  East  for  the  winter,  were 
politely  tolerated,  but  the  attitude  toward  them  was 
one  of  growing  watchfulness  and  distrust;  and  week  by 
week  the  whispered  stories  of  spies  and  gun-emplace- 
ments and  secret  stores  of  arms  in  these  people's  cellars 
or  back  gardens,  grew  more  insistent  and  detailed. 
There  certainly  had  been  at  least  one  spy,  a  real  authen- 
tic one,  afterward  shot  in  England,  who  had  stayed 
near-by,  and  the  nerves  of  the  inhabitants  had  that 
jumpiness  on  this  subject  with  which  the  inhabitants  of 
other  countries  have  long  been  familiar.  All  the  cus- 
tomary inexplicable  lights  were  seen;  all  the  customary 
mysterious  big  motor  cars  rushed  at  forbidden  and  yet 
unhindered  speeds  along  unusual  roads  at  unaccount- 
able hours;  all  the  customary  signalling  out  to  sea  was 
observed  and  passionately  sworn  to  by  otherwise  calm 
people.  It  was  possible,  the  inhabitants  found,  to 
believe  with  ease  things  about  Germans — those  who 
were  having  difficulty  with  religion  wished  it  were 
equally  easy  to  believe  things  about  God.  There  was 
nothing  Germans  wouldn't  think  of  in  the  way  of 
plotting,  and  nothing  they  wouldn't,  having  thought  of 
it,  carry  out  with  deadly  thoroughness  and  patience. 

And  into  this  uneasy  hotbed  of  readiness  to  believe 
the  worst,  arrived  the  Twinkler  twins,  rolling  their  r's 
about. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        333 

It  needed  but  a  few  inquiries  to  discover  that  none 
of  the  young  ladies'  schools  in  the  neighbourhood  had 
been  approached  on  their  behalf;  hardly  inquiries, — 
mere  casual  talk  was  sufficient,  ordinary  chatting  with 
the  principals  of  these  establishments  when  one  met 
them  at  the  lectures  and  instructive  evenings  the  more 
serious  members  of  the  community  organized  and  sup- 
ported. Not  many  of  the  winter  visitors  went  to  these 
meetings,  but  Miss  Heap  did.  Miss  Heap  had  a  rest- 
less soul.  It  was  restless  because  it  was  worried  by 
perpetual  thirst, — she  couldn't  herself  tell  after  what; 
it  wasn't  righteousness,  for  she  knew  she  was  still 
worldly,  so  perhaps  it  was  culture.  Anyhow  she  would 
give  culture  a  chance,  and  accordingly  she  went  to  the 
instructive  evenings.  Here  she  met  that  other  side  of 
Acapulco  which  doesn't  play  bridge  and  is  proud  to 
know  nothing  of  polo,  which  believes  in  education,  and 
goes  in  for  mind  training  and  welfare  work;  which  isn't, 
that  is,  well  off. 

Nobody  here  had  been  asked  to  educate  the  Twink- 
lers.     No  classes  had  been  joined  by  them. 

Miss  Heap  was  so  enigmatic,  she  who  was  naturally 
of  an  unquiet  and  exercise-loving  tongue,  that  this 
graver,  more  occupied  section  of  the  inhabitants  was 
instantly  as  much  pervaded  by  suspicions  as  the  idlest 
of  the  visitors  in  the  hotels  and  country  houses.  It 
waved  aside  the  innocent  appearance  and  obvious  ex- 
treme youth  of  the  suspects.  Useless  to  look  like  cher- 
ubs if  it  were  German  cherubs  you  looked  like.  Useless 
being  very  nearly  children  if  it  were  German  children 
you  very  nearly  were.  Why,  precisely  these  qualities 
would  be  selected  by  those  terribly  clever  Germans  for 
the  furtherance  of  their  nefarious  schemes.  It  would 
be  quite  in  keeping  with  the  German  national  character. 


334        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

that  character  of  bottomless  artfulness,  to  pick  out  two 
such  young  girls  with  just  that  type  of  empty,  baby  face, 
and  send  them  over  to  help  weave  the  gigantic  invisible 
web  with  which  America  was  presently  to  be  choked 
dead. 

.  The  serious  section  of  Acapulco,  the  section  that 
thought,  hit  on  this  explanation  of  the  Twinklers  with 
no  difficulty  whatever  once  its  suspicions  were  roused, 
because  it  was  used  to  being  able  to  explain  everything 
instantly.  It  was  proud  of  its  explanation,  and  pre- 
sented it  to  the  town  with  much  the  same  air  of  depre- 
cating but  conscious  achievement  with  which  one  pre- 
sents drinking-fountains. 

Then  there  was  the  lawyer  to  whom  Mr.  Twist  had 
gone  about  the  guardianship.  He  said  nothing,  but  he 
was  clear  in  his  mind  that  the  girls  were  German  and 
that  Mr.  Twist  wanted  to  hide  it.  He  had  thought 
more  highly  of  Mr.  Twist's  intelligence  than  this.  Why 
hide  it.f^  America  was  a  neutral  country;  technically 
she  was  neutral,  and  Germans  could  come  and  go  as 
they  pleased.  Why  unnecessarily  set  tongues  wagging? 
He  did  not,  being  of  a  continuous  shrewd  alertness  him- 
self, a  continuous  wide-awakeness  and  minute  consider- 
ation of  consequences,  realize,  and  if  he  had  he  wouldn't 
have  believed,  the  affectionate  simplicity  and  unworldli- 
ness  of  Mr.  Twist.  If  it  had  been  pointed  out  to  him 
he  would  have  dismissed  it  as  a  pose;  for  a  man  who 
makes  money  in  any  quantity  worth  handling  isn't 
affectionately  simple  and  unworldly. — ^he  is  calculating 
and  steely. 

The  lawyer  was  puzzled.  How  did  Mr.  Twist  man- 
age to  have  a  forehead  and  a  fortune  like  that,  and  yet 
be  a  fool.'^  True,  he  had  a  funny  sort  of  face  on  him 
once  you  got  down  to  the  nose  part  and  what  came  after. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        335 

— a  family  sort  of  face,  thought  the  lawyer;  a"  sort  of 
rice  pudding,  wet-nurse  face.  The  lawyer  listened 
intently  to  all  the  talk  and  rumours,  while  himself  say- 
ing nothing.  In  spite  of  being  a  married  man,  his 
scruples  about  honour  hadn't  been  blunted  by  the  urge 
to  personal  freedom  and  the  necessity  for  daily  self- 
defence  that  sometimes  afflicts  those  who  have  wives. 
He  remained  honourably  silent,  as  he  had  said  he 
would,  but  he  listened;  and  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  either  there  was  a  quite  incredible  amount  of 
stupidity  about  the  Twist  party,  or  that  there  was  some- 
thing queer. 

What  he  didn't  know,  and  what  nobody  knew,  was 
that  the  house  being  got  ready  with  such  haste  was  to 
be  an  inn.  He,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  took  the  news- 
papers ventre-d-terre  theory  of  the  house  for  granted, 
and  it  was  only  the  expectation  of  the  arrival  of  that 
respectable  lady,  the  widowed  Mrs.  Twist,  which  kept 
the  suspicions  a  little  damped  down.  They  smouldered, 
hesitating,  beneath  this  expectation;  for  Teapot  Twist's 
family  life  had  been  voluminously  described  in  the  en- 
tire American  press  when  first  his  invention  caught  on, 
and  it  was  known  to  be  pure.  There  had  been  snap- 
shots of  the  home  at  Clark  where  he  had  been  born,  of 
the  home  at  Clark  (west  aspect)  where  he  would  die — • 
Mr.  Twist  read  with  mild  surprise  that  his  liveliest  wish 
was  to  die  in  the  old  home — of  the  corner  in  the  Clark 
churchyard  where  he  would  probably  be  entombed, 
with  an  inset  showing  his  father's  gravestone  on  which 
could  clearly  be  read  the  announcement  that  he  was  the 
Resurrection  and  the  Life.  And  there  was  an  inset  of 
his  mother,  swathed  in  the  black  symbols  of  ungluttable 
grief, — a  most  creditable  mother.  And  there  were  ac- 
counts of  the  activities  of  another  near  relative,  that 


336        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Uncle  Charles  who  presided  over  the  Church  of  Heav- 
enly Refreshment  in  New  York,  and  a  snapshot  of  his 
macerated  and  unrefreshed  body  in  a  cassock, — a  most 
creditable  uncle. 

These  articles  hadn't  appeared  so  very  long  ago,  and 
the  impression  survived  and  was  general  that  Mr. 
Twist's  antecedents  were  unimpeachable.  If  it  were 
true  that  the  house  was  for  his  mother  and  she  was 
shortly  arriving,  then,  although  still  very  odd  and  unin- 
telligible, it  was  probable  that  his  being  there  now  with 
the  two  Germans  was  after  all  capable  of  explanation. 
Not  much  of  an  explanation,  though.  Even  the  mod- 
erates who  took  this  view  felt  this.  One  wasn't  with 
Germans  these  days  if  one  could  help  it.  There  was  no 
getting  away  from  that  simple  fact.  The  inevitable 
deduction  was  that  Mr.  Twist  couldn't  help  it.  Why 
couldn't  he  help  it.^^  Was  he  enslaved  by  a  scandalous 
passion  for  them,  a  passion  cold-bloodedly  planned  for 
him  by  the  German  Government,  which  was  known  to 
have  lists  of  the  notable  citizens  of  the  United  States 
with  photographs  and  details  of  their  probable  weak- 
nesses, and  was  exactly  informed  of  their  movements  .f* 
He  had  met  the  Twinklers,  so  it  was  reported,  on  a 
steamer  coming  over  from  England.  Of  course.  All 
arranged  by  the  German  Government.  That  was  the 
peculiar  evil  greatness  of  this  dangerous  people,  an- 
nounced the  serious  section  of  Acapulco,  again  with  the 
drinking-fountain-presentation  air,  that  nothing  was 
too  private  or  too  petty  to  escape  their  attention,  to 
be  turned  to  their  own  wicked  uses.  They  were  as 
economical  of  the  smallest  scraps  of  possible  usefulness 
as  a  French  cook  of  the  smallest  scraps  and  leavings  of 
food.  Everything  was  turned  to  account.  Nothing 
was  wasted.     Even  the  mosquitoes  in  Germany  were 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        337 

not  wasted.  They  contained  juices,  Germans  had  dis- 
covered, especially  after  having  been  in  contact  with 
human  beings,  and  with  these  juices  the  talented  but 
unscrupulous  Germans  made  explosives.  Could  one 
sufficiently  distrust  a  nation  that  did  things  like  that? 
asked  the  serious  section  of  Acapulco. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

PEOPLE  were  so  much  preoccupied  by  the 
Twinkler  problem  that  they  were  less  interested 
than  they  otherwise  would  have  been  in  the 
sea-blue  advertisements,  and  when  the  one  appeared 
announcing  that  The  Open  Arms  would  open  wide  on 
the  29th  of  the  month  and  exhorting  the  public  to 
watch  the  signposts,  they  merely  remarked  that  it 
wasn't,  then,  the  title  of  a  book  after  all.  Mr.  Twist 
would  have  been  surprised  and  nettled  if  he  had  known 
how  little  curiosity  his  advertisements  were  exciting; 
he  would  have  been  horrified  if  he  had  known  the 
reason.  As  it  was,  he  didn't  know  anything.  He  was 
too  busy,  too  deeply  absorbed,  to  be  vulnerable  to 
rumour;  he,  and  the  twins,  and  Mrs.  BHton  were  safe 
from  it  inside  their  magic  circle  of  Arbeit  und  Liebe. 

Sometimes  he  was  seen  in  Main  Street,  that  street  in 
Acapulco  through  which  everybody  passes  at  certain 
hours  of  the  morning,  looking  as  though  he  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  and  very  little  time  to  do  it  in;  and 
once  or  twice  the  Twinklers  were  seen  there,  also  appar- 
ently very  busy,  but  they  didn't  now  come  alone. 
Mrs.  Bilton,  the  lady  from  Los  Angeles — Acapulco 
knew  all  about  her  and  admitted  she  was  a  lady  of 
strictest  integrity  and  unimpeachable  character,  but 
this  only  made  the  Twinkler  problem  more  obscure — 
came  too,  and  seemed,  judging  from  the  animation  of 
her  talk,  to  be  on  the  best  of  terms  with  her  charges. 

But  once  an  idea  has  got  into  people's  heads,  re- 

338 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        339 

marked  the  lawyer,  who  was  nudged  by  the  friend  he 
was  walking  with  as  the  attractive  trio  were  seen 
approaching, — Mrs.  Bilton  with  her  black  dress  and 
her  snowy  hair  setting  off,  as  they  in  their  turn  set  her 
off,  the  twins  in  their  clean  white  frocks  and  shining 
youth, — once  an  idea  has  got  into  people's  heads  it 
sticks.  It  is  slow  to  get  in,  and  impossible  to  get  out. 
Yet  on  the  face  of  it,  was  it  likely  that  Mrs.  Bilton — — 

"Say,"  interrupted  his  friend,  "since  when  have  you 
joined  up  with  the  water-blooded  believe-nothing-but- 
good-ites.^" 

And  only  his  personal  affection  for  the  lawyer  re- 
strained him  from  using  the  terrible  word  pro-German; 
but  it  had  been  in  his  mind. 

The  day  before  the  opening.  Miss  Heap  heard  from 
an  acquaintance  in  the  East  to  whom  she  had  written  in 
her  uneasiness,  and  who  was  staying  with  some  j>eople 
hving  in  Clark.  Miss  Heap  wrote  soon  after  the 
departure — she  didn't  see  why  she  shouldn't  call  it  by 
its  proper  name  and  say  right  out  expulsion — of  the 
Twist  party  from  the  Cosmopolitan,  but  letters  take  a 
long  time  to  get  East  and  answers  take  the  same  long 
time  to  come  back  in,  and  messages  are  sometimes  slow 
in  being  delivered  if  the  other  person  doesn't  realize, 
as  one  does  oneself,  the  tremendous  interests  that  are 
at  stake.  What  could  be  a  more  tremendous  interest, 
and  one  more  adapted  to  the  American  genius,  than 
safe-guarding  public  morals?  Miss  Heap  wrote  before 
the  sinister  rumours  of  German  machinations  had  got 
about;  she  was  still  merely  at  the  stage  of  uneasiness  in 
regard  to  the  morals  of  the  Twist  party;  she  couldn't 
sleep  at  night  for  thinking  of  them.  Of  course  if  it 
were  true  that  his  mother  was  coming  out  .  .  .  but 
was  she?     Miss  Heap  somehow  felt  unable  to  believe 


340        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

it.  "Do  tell  your  friends  in  Clark,"  she  wrote,  "how 
delighted  we  all  are  to  hear  that  Mrs.  Twist  is  going  to 
be  one  of  us  in  our  sunny  refuge  here  this  winter.  A 
real  warm  welcome  awaits  her.  Her  son  is  working 
day  and  night  getting  the  house  ready  for  her,  helped 
indefatigably  by  the  two  Miss  Twinklers." 

She  had  to  wait  over  a  fortnight  for  the  answer,  and 
by  the  time  she  got  it  those  other  more  terrible  doubts 
had  arisen,  the  doubts  as  to  the  exact  position  occupied 
by  the  Twinklers  and  Mr.  Twist  in  the  German  secret 
plans  for,  first,  the  pervasion,  and,  second,  the  invasion 
of  America;  and  on  reading  the  opening  lines  of  the 
letter  Miss  Heap  found  she  had  to  sit  down,  for  her 
legs  gave  way  beneath  her. 

It  appeared  that  Mrs.  Twist  hadn't  known  where  her 
son  was  till  Miss  Heap's  letter  came.  He  had  left  Clark 
in  company  of  the  two  girls  mentioned,  and  about  whom 
his  mother  knew  nothing,  the  very  morning  after  his 
arrival  home  from  his  long  absence  in  Europe.  That 
was  all  his  mother  knew.  She  was  quite  broken. 
Coming  on  the  top  of  all  her  other  sorrow  her  only  son's 
behaviour  had  been  a  fearful,  perhaps  a  finishing  blow, 
but  she  was  such  a  good  woman  that  she  still  prayed 
for  him.  Clark  was  horrified.  His  mother  had  de- 
cided at  first  she  would  try  to  shield  him  and  say  noth- 
ing, but  when  she  found  that  nobody  had  the  least 
idea  of  what  he  had  done  she  felt  she  owed  it  to  her 
friends  to  be  open  and  have  no  secrets  from  Ihem. 
Whatever  it  cost  her  in  suffering  and  h'umiliation  she 
would  be  frank.  Anything  was  better  than  keeping  up 
false  appearances  to  friends  who  believed  in  you.  She 
was  a  brave  woman,  a  splendid  woman.  The  girls — 
poor  Mrs.  Twist — were  Germans. 

On  reading  this  Miss  Heap  was  all  of  a  tingle.     Her 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        341 

worst  suspicions  hadn't  been  half  bad  enough.  Here 
was  everything  just  about  as  black  as  it  could  be;  and 
Mr.  Twist,  a  well-known  and  universally  respected 
American  citizen,  had  been  turned,  by  means  of  those 
girls  playing  upon  weaknesses  she  shuddered  to  think 
of  but  that  she  had  reason  to  believe,  from  books  she 
had  studied  and  conversations  she  had  reluctantly 
taken  part  in,  were  not  altogether  uncommon,  into  a 
cat's-paw  of  the  German  Government. 

What  should  she  do.^  What  should  she  say?  To 
whom  should  she  go.^^  Which  was  the  proper  line  of 
warning  for  her  to  take?  It  seemed  to  her  that  the 
presence  of  these  people  on  the  Pacific  coast  was  a  real 
menace  to  its  safety,  moral  and  physical;  but  how  get 
rid  of  them?  And  if  they  were  got  rid  of  wouldn't  it 
only  be  exposing  some  other  part  of  America,  less 
watchful,  less  perhaps  able  to  take  care  of  itself,  to  the 
ripening  and  furtherance  of  their  schemes,  whatever 
their  schemes  might  be?  Even  at  that  moment  Miss 
Heap  unconsciously  felt  that  to  let  the  Twinklers  go 
would  be  to  lose  thrills.  And  she  was  really  thrilled. 
She  prickled  with  excitement  and  horror.  Her  cir- 
culation hadn't  been  so  good  for  years.  She  wasn't 
one  to  dissect  her  feelings,  so  she  had  no  idea  of  how 
thoroughly  she  was  enjoying  herself.  And  it  was  while 
she  sat  alone  in  her  bedroom,  her  fingers  clasping  and 
unclasping  the  arms  of  her  chair,  her  feet  nervously 
rubbing  up  and  down  on  the  thick  soft  carpet,  hesi- 
tating as  to  the  best  course  for  her  to  take,  holding 
her  knowledge  meanwhile  tight,  hugging  it  for  a  little 
altogether  to  herself,  her  very  own,  shared  as  yet  by 
no  one, — it  was  while  she  sat  there,  that  people  out 
of  doors  in  Acapulco  itself,  along  the  main  roads,  out 
in  the  country  towards  Zamora  on  the  north  and  San 


S42        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Bias  on  the  south,  became  suddenly  aware  of  new 
signposts. 

They  hadn't  been  there  the  day  before.  They  all 
turned  towards  the  spot  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains 
where  Pepper  Lane  was.  They  all  pointed,  with  a  long 
white  finger,  in  that  direction.  And  on  them  all  was 
written  in  plain,  sea-blue  letters,  beneath  which  the 
distance  in  miles  or  fractions  of  a  mile  was  clearly 
marked,  To  The  Open  Arms. 

Curiosity  was  roused  at  last.  People  meeting  each 
other  in  Main  Street  stopped  to  talk  about  these  Arms, 
wondered  where  and  what  they  were,  and  decided  to 
follow  the  signposts  that  afternoon  in  their  cars  and 
track  them  down.  They  made  up  parties  to  go  and 
track  together.  It  would  be  a  relief  to  have  something 
a  Kttle  different  to  do.  What  on  earth  could  The 
Open  Arms  be.^^  Hopes  were  expressed  that  they 
weren't  something  religious.  Awful  to  follow  signposts 
out  into  the  country  only  to  find  they  landed  you  in  a 
meeting-house. 

At  lunch  in  the  hotels,  and  everywhere  where  people 
were  together,  the  signposts  were  discussed.  Miss 
Heap  heard  them  being  discussed  from  her  solitary  table, 
but  was  so  much  taken  up  with  her  own  exciting 
thoughts  that  she  hardly  noticed.  After  lunch,  how- 
ever, as  she  was  passing  out  of  the  restaurant,  still  full 
of  her  unshared  news  and  still  uncertain  as  to  whom 
she  should  tell  it  first,  Mr.  Ridding  called  out  from  his 
table  and  said  he  supposed  she  was  going  too. 

They  had  been  a  little  chilly  to  each  other  since  the 
afternoon  of  the  conversation  with  the  Twinklers,  but 
he  would  have  called  out  to  any  one  at  that  moment. 
He  was  sitting  waiting  while  Mrs.  Ridding  finished  her 
lunch,  his  own  lunch  finished  long  ago,  and  was  in  the 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        343 

condition  of  muffled  but  extreme  exasperation  which 
the  unoccupied  watching  of  Mrs.  Ridding  at  meals 
produced.  Every  day  three  times  this  happened,  that 
Mr.  Ridding  got  through  his  meal  first  by  at  least 
twenty  minutes  and  then  sat  trying  not  to  mind  Mrs. 
Ridding.  She  wasn't  aware  of  these  efforts.  They 
would  greatly  have  shocked  her;  for  to  try  not  to  mind 
one's  wife  surely  isn't  what  decent,  loving  husbands 
ever  have  to  do. 

"Going  where .^"  asked  Miss  Heap,  stopping  by  the 
table;  whereupon  Mr.  Ridding  had  the  slight  relief  of 
getting  up. 

Mrs.  Ridding  continued  to  eat  impassively. 

"Following  these  new  signposts  that  are  all  over  the 
place,"  said  Mr.  Ridding.  "Sort  of  paper-chase 
business." 

"Yes.  I'd  like  to.  Were  you  thinking  of  going, 
Mrs.  Ridding.?" 

"After  our  nap,"  said  Mrs.  Ridding,  steadily  eating. 
"I'll  take  you.     Car  at  four  o'clock,  Albert." 

She  didn't  raise  her  eyes  from  her  plate,  and  as  Miss 
Heap  well  knew  that  Mrs.  Ridding  was  not  open  to 
conversation  during  meals  and  as  she  had  nothing  to 
say  to  Mr.  Ridding,  she  expressed  her  thanks  and 
pleasure,  and  temporarily  left  them. 

This  was  a  day  of  shocks  and  thrills.  When  the 
big  limousine — symbol  of  Mrs.  Ridding's  power,  for  Mr. 
Ridding  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  see  why  he  should 
have  to  provide  a  strange  old  lady  with  cars,  and  yet 
did  so  on  an  increasing  scale  of  splendour — arrived  at 
the  turn  on  the  main  road  to  San  Bias  which  leads  into 
Pepper  Lane  and  was  confronted  by  the  final  signpost 
pointing  up  it,  for  the  first  time  The  Open  Arms  and 
the  Twist  and  Twinkler  party  entered  Miss  Heap's 


344        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

mind  in  company.  So  too  did  they  enter  Mr.  Rid- 
ding's  mind ;  and  they  only  remained  outside  Mrs.  Rid- 
ding's  because  of  her  profound  uninterest.  Her 
thoughts  were  merged  in  aspic.  That  was  the  worst  of 
aspic  when  it  was  as  good  as  it  was  at  the  CosmopoHtan : 
one  wasn't  able  to  leave  off  eating  it  quite  in  time,  and 
then,  unfortunately,  had  to  go  on  thinking  of  it  after- 
wards. 

The  Twist  house,  remembered  her  companions 
simultaneously,  was  in  Pepper  Lane.  Odd  that  this 
other  thing,  whatever  it  was,  should  happen  to  be  there 
too.  Miss  Heap  said  nothing,  but  sat  very  straight 
and  alert,  her  eyes  everywhere.  Mr.  Ridding  of 
course  said  nothing  either.  Not  for  worlds  would  he 
have  mentioned  the  word  Twist,  which  so  instantly  and 
inevitably  suggested  that  other  and  highly  controversial 
word  Twinkler.  But  he  too  sat  all  eyes;  for  anyhow 
he  might  in  passing  get  a  gKmpse  of  the  place  containing 
those  cunning  little  bits  of  youngness,  the  Twinkler 
sisters,  and  even  with  any  luck  a  glimpse  of  their 
very  selves. 

Up  the  lane  went  the  limousine,  slowly  because  of  the 
cars  in  front  of  it.  It  was  one  of  a  string  of  cars,  for  the 
day  was  lovely,  there  was  no  polo,  and  nobody  hap- 
pened to  be  giving  a  party.  All  the  way  out  from 
Acapulco  they  had  only  had  to  follow  other  cars. 
Cars  were  going,  and  cars  were  coming  back.  The 
cars  going  were  full  of  solemn  people,  pathetically 
anxious  to  be  interested.  The  cars  coming  back  were 
full  of  animated  people  who  evidently  had  achieved 
interest. 

Miss  Heap  became  more  and  more  alert  as  they 
approached  the  bend  in  the  lane  round  which  the  Twist 
house  was  situated.     She  had  been  there  before,  making 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        345 

a  point  of  getting  a  friend  to  motor  her  past  it  in  order 
to  see  what  she  could  for  herself,  but  Mr.  Ridding,  in 
spite  of  his  desire  to  go  and  have  a  look  too,  had  always, 
each  time  he  tried  to,  found  Mrs.  Ridding  barring  the 
way.  So  that  he  didn't  exactly  know  where  it  was; 
and  when  on  turning  the  corner  the  car  suddenly  stop- 
ped, and  putting  his  head  out — ^he  was  sitting  back- 
wards— he  saw  a  great,  old-fashioned  signboard,  such 
as  he  was  accustomed  to  in  pictures  of  ancient  English 
village  greens,  with 

t^tie  ©pen  ^rmsi 

in  medieval  letters  painted  on  it,  all  he  said  was, 
"  Guess  we've  run  it  to  earth." 

Miss  Heap  sat  with  her  hands  in  her  lap,  staring. 
Mrs.  Ridding,  her  mind  blocked  by  aspic,  wasn't 
receiving  impressions.  She  gazed  with  heavy  eyes 
straight  in  front  of  her.  There  she  saw  cars.  Many 
cars.  All  stopped  at  this  particular  spot.  With  a 
dull  sensation  of  fathomless  fatigue  she  dimly  wondered 
at  them. 

"Looks  as  though  it's  a  hostelry,"  said  Mr.  Ridding, 
who  remembered  his  Dickens;  and  he  blinked  up, 
craning  his  head  out,  at  the  signboard,  on  which  through 
a  gap  in  the  branches  of  the  pepper  trees  a  shaft  of 
briUiant  late  afternoon  sun  was  striking.  "Don't  see 
one,  though." 

He  jerked  his  thumb.  "Up  back  of  the  trees  there, 
I  reckon,"  he  said. 

Then  he  prepared  to  open  the  door  and  go  and  have  a 
look. 

A  hand  shot  out  of  Miss  Heap's  lap  at  him. 
"Don't,"  she  said  quickly.     **Don't,  Mr.  Ridding." 

There  was  a  little  green  gate  in  the  thick  hedge  that 


346        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

grew  behind  the  pepper  trees,  and  some  people  he  knew, 
who  had  been  in  the  car  in  front,  were  walking  up  to  it. 
Some  other  people  he  knew  had  already  got  to  it,  and 
were  standing  talking  together  with  what  looked  like 
leaflets  in  their  hands.  These  leaflets  came  out  of  a 
green  wooden  box  fastened  on  to  one  of  the  gate-posts, 
with  the  words  Won't  you  take  one?  painted  on  it. 

Mr.  Ridding  naturally  wanted  to  go  and  take  one, 
and  here  was  JVIiss  Heap  laying  hold  of  him  and  saying 
*^  Don't." 

"Don't  what.^"  he  asked  looking  down  at  her,  his 
hand  on  the  door. 

"Hello  Ridding,"  called  out  one  of  the  people  he 
knew.  "No  good  getting  out.  Show  doesn't  open 
till  to-morrow  at  four.  Can't  get  in  to-day.  Gate's 
bolted.     Nothing  doing." 

And  then  the  man  detached  himself  from  the  group 
at  the  gate  and  came  over  to  the  car  with  a  leaflet  in 
his  hand. 

"Say — "  he  said, — "how  are  you  to-day.  Miss 
Heap.^  Mrs.  Ridding,  your  humble  servant — say, 
look  at  this.  Teapot  Twist  wasn't  born  yesterday  when 
it  comes  to  keeping  things  dark.  No  mention  of  his 
name  on  this  book  of  words,  but  it's  the  house  he  was 
doing  up  all  right,  and  it  is  to  be  used  as  an  inn.  After- 
noon-tea inn.  Profits  to  go  to  the  American  Red 
Cross.  Price  per  head  five  dollars.  Bit  stiff,  ^ve 
dollars  for  tea.  Wonder  where  those  Twinkler  girls 
come  in.  Here — ^you  have  this.  Ridding,  and  study  it. 
I'll  get  another."  And  taking  off  his  hat  a  second 
time  to  the  ladies  he  went  back  to  his  friends. 

In  great  agitation  Miss  Heap  turned  to  Mrs.  Rid- 
ding, whose  mind,  galvanized  by  the  magic  words 
Twist  and  Twinkler,  was  slowly  heaving  itself  free  of 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        347 

aspic.  "Perhaps  we  had  best  go  back  to  the  hotel, 
Mrs.  Ridding,"  said  Miss  Heap,  her  voice  shaking. 
"There's  something  I  wish  particularly  to  tell  you.  I 
ought  to  have  done  so  this  morning,  directly  I  knew, 
but  I  had  no  idea  of  course  that  this.  .  .  ."  She 
waved  a  hand  at  the  signboard,  and  collapsed  into 
speechlessness. 

"Albert— hotel,"  directed  Mrs.  Ridding. 

And  Mr.  Ridding,  clutching  the  leaflet,  his  face  con- 
gested with  suppressed  emotions,  obediently  handed 
on  the  order  through  the  speaking-tube  to  the  chauffeur. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

IT'S  perfect,'  said  the  twins,  looking  round  the  tea- 
room. 
This  was  next  day,  at  a  quarter  to  four.  They 
had  been  looking  round  saying  it  was  perfect  at  in- 
tervals since  the  morning.  Each  time  they  finished 
getting  another  of  the  little  tables  ready,  each  time 
they  brought  in  and  set  down  another  bowl  of  flowers, 
they  stood  back  and  gazed  a  moment  in  silence,  and 
then  said  with  one  voice,  "It's  'perfect.'' 

Mr.  Twist,  though  the  house  was  not,  as  we  have 
seen,  quite  as  sober,  quite  as  restrained  in  its  effect 
as  he  had  intended,  was  obliged  to  admit  that  it  did 
look  very  pretty.  And  so  did  the  Annas.  Especially 
the  Annas.  They  looked  so  pretty  in  the  sea-blue 
frocks  and  little  Dutch  caps  and  big  muslin  aprons  that 
he  took  off  his  spectacles  and  cleaned  them  carefully 
so  as  to  have  a  thoroughly  uninterrupted  view;  and 
as  they  stood  at  a  quarter  to  four  gazing  round  the  room, 
he  stood  gazing  at  them,  and  when  they  said  "It's 
perfect,"  he  said,  indicating  them  with  his  thumb, 
"Same  here,"  and  then  they  all  laughed  for  they 
were  all  very  happy,  and  Mrs.  Bilton,  arrayed  exactly  as 
Mr.  Twist  had  pictured  her  when  he  engaged  her  in 
handsome  black,  her  white  hair  beautifully  brushed  and 
neat,  crossed  over  to  the  Annas  and  gave  each  of  them 
a  hearty  kiss — for  luck,  she  said — which  Mr.  Twist 
watched  with  an  odd  feeling  of  jealousy. 

"I'd  like  to  do  that,"  he  thought,  filled  with  a  sudden 

348 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        349 

desire  to  hug.  Then  he  said  it  out  loud.  "I'd  like  to 
do  that/'  he  said  boldly.  And  added,  "As  it's  the 
opening  day." 

"I  don't  think  it  would  afford  you  any  permanent 
satisfaction,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  placidly.  "There's 
nothing  really  to  be  gained,  we  think,  by  kissing.  Of 
course,"  she  added  politely  to  Mrs.  Bilton,  "we  like  it 
very  much  as  an  expression  of  esteem." 

"Then   why   not   in   that   spirit "    began   Mr. 

Twist. 

"We  don't  hold  with  kissing,"  said  Anna-Rose 
quickly,  turning  very  red.  Intolerable  to  be  kissed 
en  famille.  If  it  had  to  be  done  at  all,  kissing  should 
be  done  quietly,  she  thought.  But  she  and  Anna- 
Felicitas  didn't  hold  with  it  anyhow.  Never.  Never. 
To  her  amazement  she  foimd  tears  in  her  eyes.  Well, 
of  all  the  liquid  idiots.  ...  It  must  be  that  she 
was  so  happy.  She  had  never  been  so  happy.  Where 
on  earth  had  her  handkerchief  got  to.     .     .     . 

"Hello,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  staring  at  her. 

Anna-Felicitas  looked  at  her  quickly. 

"It's  merely  bliss,"  she  said,  taking  the  comer 
of  her  beautiful  new  muslin  apron  to  Christopher's  eyes. 
"Excess  of  it.  We  are,  you  know,"  she  said,  smiling 
over  her  shoulder  at  Mr.  Twist,  so  that  the  corner  of 
her  apron,  being  undirected,  began  dabbing  at  Chris- 
topher's perfectly  tearless  ears,  "quite  extraordinarily 
happy,  and  all  through  you.  Nevertheless  Anna-R." 
she  continued,  addressing  her  with  firmness  while  she 
finished  her  eyes  and  began  her  nose,  "You  may  like  to 
be  reminded  that  there's  only  ten  minutes  left  now 
before  all  those  cars  that  were  here  yesterday  come 
again,  and  you  wouldn't  wish  to  embark  on  your  career 
as  a  waitress  hampered  by  an  ugly  face,  would  you.^^" 


350        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

But  half  an  hour  later  no  cars  had  come.  Pepper 
Lane  was  still  empty.  The  long  shadows  lay  across  it 
in  a  beautiful  quiet,  and  the  crickets  in  the  grass  chir- 
ruped undisturbed.  Twice  sounds  were  heard  as  if 
something  was  coming  up  it,  and  everybody  flew  to 
their  posts — Li  Koo  to  the  boiling  water,  Mrs.  Bilton 
to  her  raised  desk  at  the  end  of  the  room,  and  the  twins 
to  the  door — but  the  sounds  passed  on  along  the  road 
and  died  away  round  the  next  comer. 

At  half-past  four  the  personnel  of  The  Open  Arms 
was  sitting  about  silently  in  a  state  of  increasing  un- 
easiness, when  Mr.  Ridding  walked  in. 

There  had  been  no  noise  of  a  car  to  announce  him; 
he  just  walked  in  mopping  his  forehead,  for  he  had  come 
in  the  jitney  omnibus  to  the  nearest  point  and  had  done 
the  last  mile  on  his  own  out-of-condition  feet.  Mrs. 
Ridding  thought  he  was  writing  letters  in  the  smoking- 
room.  She  herself  was  in  a  big  chair  on  the  verandah, 
and  with  Miss  Heap  and  most  of  the  other  guests  was 
discussing  The  Open  Arms  in  all  its  probable  significance. 
He  hadn't  been  able  to  get  away  sooner  because  of  the 
nap.  He  had  gone  through  with  the  nap  from  start  to 
finish  so  as  not  to  rouse  suspicion.  He  arrived  very 
hot,  but  with  a  feeling  of  dare-devil  running  of  risks  that 
gave  him  great  satisfaction.  He  knew  that  he  would 
cool  down  again  presently  and  that  then  the  conse- 
quences of  his  behaviour  would  be  unpleasant  to  re- 
flect upon,  but  meanwhile  his  blood  was  up. 

He  walked  in  feeling  not  a  day  older  than  thirty, — 
a  most  gratifying  sensation.  The  personnel,  after  a 
moment's  open-mouthed  surprise,  rushed  to  greet  him. 
Never  was  a  man  more  welcome.  Never  had  Mr.  Rid- 
ding been  so  warmly  welcomed  anywhere  in  his  life. 

"Now  isn't  this  real  homey,"  he  said,  beaming  at 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        351 

Anna-Rose  who  took  his  stick.  "Wish  I'd  known  you 
were  going  to  do  it,  for  then  I'd  have  had  something  to 
look  forward  to." 

"Will  you  have  tea  or  coffee.^"  asked  Anna-Felicitas, 
trying  to  look  very  solemn  and  like  a  family  butler  but 
her  voice  quivering  with  eagerness.  "Or  perhaps 
you  would  prefer  frothed  chocolate  .^^  Each  of  these 
beverages  can  be  provided  either  hot  or  iced " 

"There's  ice-cream  as  well,"  said  Anna-Rose,  tumul- 
tuously  in  spite  of  also  trying  to  look  like  a  family 
butler.  "/'^  have  ice-cream  if  I  were  you.  There's 
more  body  in  it.  Cold,  delicious  body.  And  you  look  so 
hot.  Hot  things  should  always  as  soon  as  possible  be 
united  to  cold  things,  so  as  to  restore  the  proper 
balance " 

"And  there's  some  heavenly  stuff  called  cinnamon- 
toast — ^hot,  you  know,  but  if  you  have  ice-cream  at  the 
same  time  it  won't  matter,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  hang- 
ing up  his  hat  for  him.  "I  don't  know  whether  you've 
studied  the  leaflets,"  she  continued,  "but  in  case  you 
haven't  I  feel  I  oughtn't  to  conceal  from  you  that  the 
price  is  five  dollars  whatever  you  have." 

"So  that,"  said  Anna-Rose,  "you  needn't  bother 
about  trying  to  save,  for  you  can't." 

"Then  I'll  have  tea  to  start  with  and  see  how  I  get 
on,"  said  Mr.  Ridding,  sitting  down  in  the  chair  Anna- 
Felicitas  held  for  him  and  beaming  up  at  her. 

She  flicked  an  imaginary  grain  of  dust  off  the  cloth 
with  the  corner  of  her  apron  to  convey  to  him  that  she 
knew  her  business,  and  hurried  away  to  give  the  order. 
Indeed,  they  both  hurried  away  to  give  the  order. 

"Say "  called  out  Mr.  Ridding,  for  he  thought  one 

Anna  would  have  been  enough  for  this  and  he 
was  pining  to  talk  to  them;  but  the  twins  weren't  to 


352        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

be  stopped  from  both  giving  the  very  first  order,  and 
they  disappeared  together  into  the  pantry. 

Mrs.  Bilton  sat  in  the  farthest  comer  at  her  desk, 
apparently  absorbed  in  an  enormous  ledger.  In  this 
ledger  she  was  to  keep  accounts  and  to  enter  the  number 
of  teas,  and  from  this  high  seat  she  was  to  preside  over 
the  activities  of  the  personnel.  She  had  retired  hastily 
to  it  on  the  unexpected  entrance  of  Mr.  Ridding,  and 
pen  in  hand  was  endeavouring  to  look  as  if  she  were 
totting  up  figures.  As  the  pages  were  blank  this  was  a 
little  diflicult.  And  it  was  difficult  to  sit  there  quiet. 
She  wanted  to  get  down  and  go  and  chat  with  the 
guest;  she  felt  she  had  quite  a  good  deal  she  could  say 
to  him;  she  had  a  great  itch  to  go  and  talk,  but  Mr. 
Twist  had  been  particular  that  to  begin  with,  till  the 
room  was  fairly  full,  he  and  she  should  leave  the  guests 
entirely  to  the  Annas. 

He  himself  was  going  to  keep  much  in  the  background 
at  all  times,  but  through  the  haK-open  door  of  his  office 
he  could  see  and  hear;  and  he  couldn't  help  thinking, 
as  he  sat  there  watching  and  observed  the  effulgence  of 
the  beams  the  old  gentleman  just  arrived  turned  on  the 
twins,  that  the  first  guest  appeared  to  be  extraordinarily 
and  imdesirably  affectionate.  He  thought  he  had  seen 
him  at  the  Cosmopolitan,  but  wasn't  sure.  He  didn't 
know  that  the  Annas,  after  their  conversation  with  him 
there,  felt  towards  him  as  old  friends,  and  he  considered 
their  manner  was  a  little  unduly  familiar.  Perhaps, 
after  all,  he  thought  uneasily,  Mrs.  Bilton  had  better  do 
the  waiting  and  the  Annas  sit  with  him  in  the  office.  The 
ledger  could  be  written  up  at  the  end  of  the  day.  Or  he 
could  hire  somebody.     .     .     . 

Mr.  Twist  felt  worried,  and  pulled  at  his  ear.  And 
why  was  there  only  one  guest?     It  was  twenty  minutes 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        353 

to  five;  and  this  time  yesterday  the  road  had  been 
choked  with  cars.  He  felt  very  much  worried.  With 
every  minute  this  absence  of  guests  grew  more  and 
more  remarkable.  Perhaps  he  had  better,  this  being 
the  opening  day,  go  in  and  welcome  the  solitary  one 
there  was.  Perhaps  it  would  be  wise  to  elaborate  the 
idea  of  the  inn  for  his  edification,  so  that  he  could  hand 
on  what  he  had  heard  to  those  others  who  so  unac- 
countably hadn't  come. 

He  got  up  and  went  into  the  other  room;  and  just  as 
Anna-Felicitas  was  reappearing  with  the  teapot  followed 
by  Anna-Rose  with  a  tray  of  cakes,  Mr.  Ridding,  who 
was  sitting  up  expectantly  and  giving  his  tie  a  little  pat 
of  adjustment,  perceived  bearing  down  upon  him  that 
fellow  Teapot  Twist. 

This  was  a  blow.  He  hadn't  run  risks  and  walked 
in  the  afternoon  heat  to  sit  and  talk  to  Twist.  Mr. 
Ridding  was  a  friendly  and  amiable  old  man,  and  at 
any  other  time  would  have  talked  to  him  with  pleasure; 
but  he  had  made  up  his  mind  for  the  Twinklers  as  one 
makes  up  one's  mind  for  a  certain  dish  and  is  ravaged 
by  strange  fury  if  it  isn't  produced.  Besides,  hang  it 
all,  he  was  going  to  pay  five  dollars  for  his  tea,  and  for 
that  sum  he  ought  to  least  to  have  it  under  the  condi- 
tions he  preferred. 

"Glad  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Twist,"  he  nevertheless 
said  as  Mr.  Twist  introduced  himseK,  his  eyes,  however, 
roving  over  the  ministering  Annas, — a  roving  Mr.  Twist 
noticed  with  fresh  misgivings. 

It  made  him  sit  down  firmly  at  the  table  and  say,  "If 
you  don't  mind,  Mr. " 

"Ridding  is  my  name."  ^ 

"If  you  don't  mind,  Mr.  Ridding,  I'd  like  to  explain 
our  objects  to  you." 


354        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

But  he  couldn't  help  wondering  what  he  would  do  if 
there  were  several  tables  with  roving-eyed  guests  at 
them,  it  being  clear  that  there  wouldn't  be  enough  of 
him  in  such  a  case  to  go  round. 

Mr.  Ridding,  for  his  part,  couldn't  help  wondering 
why  the  devil  Teapot  Twist  sat  down  unasked  at  his 
table.  Five  dollars.  Come  now.  For  that  a  man 
had  a  right  to  a  table  to  himself. 

But  anyhow  the  Annas  wouldn't  have  stayed  talking, 
for  at  that  moment  a  car  stopped  in  the  lane  and  quite 
a  lot  of  footsteps  were  heard  coming  up  the  neatly 
sanded  path.  Mr.  Ridding  pricked  up  his  ears,  for 
from  the  things  he  had  heard  being  said  all  the  evening 
before  and  all  that  morning  in  Acapulco,  besides  most 
of  the  night  from  the  lips  of  that  strange  old  lady  with 
whom  by  some  dreadful  mistake  he  was  obliged  to 
sleep,  he  hadn't  supposed  there  would  be  exactly  a  rush. 

Four  young  men  came  in.  Mr.  Ridding  didn't  know 
them.  No  class,  he  thought,  looking  them  over;  and 
was  seized  with  a  feeling  of  sulky  vexation  suitable  to 
twenty  when  he  saw  with  what  enthusiasm  the  Twink- 
lers  flew  to  meet  them.  They  behaved,  thought  Mr. 
Ridding  crossly,  as  if  they  were  the  oldest  and  dearest 
friends. 

"Who  are  they?"  he  asked  curtly  of  Mr.  Twist, 
cutting  into  the  long  things  he  was  saying. 

"Only  the  different  experts  who  helped  me  rebuild 
the  place,"  said  Mr.  Twist  a  little  impatiently;  he  too 
had  pricked  up  his  ears  in  expectation  at  the  sound  of 
all  those  feet,  and  was  disappointed. 

He  continued  what  Mr.  Ridding,  watching  the  group 
of  young  people,  called  sulkily  to  himself  his  rigmarole, 
but  continued  more  abstractedly.  He  also  was  watch- 
ing the  Annas  and  the  experts.     The  young  men  were 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        355 

evidently  in  the  highest  spirits,  and  were  walking  round 
the  Annas  admiring  their  get-up  and  expressing  their 
admiration  in  laughter  and  exclamations.  One  would 
have  thought  they  had  known  each  other  all  their  lives. 
The  twins  were  wreathed  in  smiles.  They  looked  as 
pleased,  Mr.  Twist  thought,  as  cats  that  are  being 
stroked.  Almost  he  could  hear  them  purring.  He 
glanced  helplessly  across  to  where  Mrs.  Bilton  sat,  as 
he  had  told  her,  bent  pen  in  hand  over  the  ledger.  She 
didn't  move.  It  was  true  he  had  told  her  to  sit  like 
that,  but  hadn't  the  woman  any  imagination?  What 
she  ought  to  do  now  was  to  bustle  forward  and  take 
that  laughing  group  in  charge. 

"As  I  was  telling  you "  resumed  Mr.   Twist, 

returning  with  an  effort  to  Mr.  Ridding,  only  to  find 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  young  people  and  catch  an  unmis- 
takably thwarted  look  in  his  face. 

In  a  fla^  Mr.  Twist  realized  what  he  had  come  for, 
— it  was  solely  to  see  and  talk  to  the  twins.  He  must 
have  noticed  them  at  the  Cosmopolitan,  and  come 
out  just  for  them.  Just  for  that.  "Unprincipled  old 
scoundrel,"  said  Mr.  Twist  under  his  breath,  his  ears 

flaming.    Aloud  he  said,  **As  I  was  telling  you "  and 

went  on  distractedly  with  his  rigmarole. 

Then  some  more  people  came  in.  They  had  motored, 
but  the  noise  the  experts  were  making  had  drowned  the 
sound  of  their  arrival.  Mr.  Ridding  and  Mr.  Twist, 
both  occupied  in  glowering  at  the  group  in  the  middle  of 
the  room,  were  made  aware  of  their  presence  by  Anna- 
Felicitas  suddenly  dropping  the  pencil  and  tablets 
she  had  been  provided  with  for  writing  down  orders 
and  taking  an  uncertain  and  obviously  timid  step 
forward. 

They  both  looked  round  in  the  direction  of  her  reluct- 


356        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

ant  step,  and  saw  a  man  and  two  women  standing  on 
the  threshold.  Mr.  Twist,  of  course,  didn't  know  them; 
he  hardly  knew  anybody,  even  by  sight.  But  Mr. 
Ridding  did.  That  is,  he  knew  them  well  by  sight  and 
had  carefully  avoided  knowing  them  any  other  way, 
for  thej^  were  Germans. 

Mr.  Ridding  was  one  of  those  who  didn't  like  Ger- 
mans. He  was  a  man  who  liked  or  dislilced  what  his 
daily  paper  told  him  to,  and  his  daily  paper  was  anti- 
German.  For  reasons  natural  to  one  who  disliked 
Germans  and  yet  at  the  same  time  had  a  thirstily 
affectionate  disposition,  he  declined  to  believe  the 
prevailing  theory  about  the  Twinklers.  Besides,  he 
didn't  believe  it  anyhow.  At  that  age  people  were 
truthful,  and  he  had  heard  them  explain  they  had  come 
from  England  and  had  acquired  their  rolling  r's  during 
a  sojourn  abroad.  Why  should  he  doubt .^^  But  he 
refrained  from  declaring  his  belief  in  their  innocence 
of  the  unpopular  nationality,  owing  to  a  desire  to  avoid 
trouble  in  that  bedroom  he  couldn't  call  his  but  was 
obliged  so  humiliatingly  to  speak  of  as  ours.  Except, 
however,  for  the  Twinklers,  for  all  other  persons  of 
whom  it  was  said  that  they  were  Germans,  naturalized 
or  not,  immediate  or  remote,  he  had,  instructed  by  his 
newspaper,  what  he  called  a  healthy  instinctive  ab- 
horrence. 

"And  she's  got  it  too,"  he  thought,  much  gratified 
at  this  bond  between  them,  as  he  noted  Anna-Felicitas's 
hesitating  and  reluctant  advance  to  meet  the  new 
guests.     "There's  proof  that  people  are  wrong." 

But  what  Anna-Felicitas  had  got  was  stage-fright; 
for  here  were  the  first  strangers,  the  first  real,  proper 
visitors  such  as  any  shop  or  hotel  might  have.  Mr. 
Ridding  was  a  friend.     So  were  the  experts  friends. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        357 

This  was  trade  coming  in, — real  business  being  done. 
Anna-Felicitas  hadn't  supposed  she  would  be  shy  when 
the  long-expected  and  prepared-for  moment  arrived, 
but  she  was.  And  it  was  because  the  guests  seemed  so 
disconcertingly  pleased  to  see  her.  Even  on  the 
threshold  the  whole  three  stood  smiling  broadly  at  her. 
She  hadn't  been  prepared  for  that,  and  it  unnerved  her. 

"Charming,  charming,"  said  the  newcomers,  advanc- 
ing towards  her  and  embracing  the  room  and  the  tables 
and  the  Annas  in  one  immense  inclusive  smile  of 
appreciation. 

"Know  those?"  asked  Mr.  Ridding,  again  cutting 
into  Mr,  Twist's  explanations. 
.  "No,"  said  he. 

"  Wangelbeckers,"  said  Mr.  Ridding  briefly. 

"Indeed,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  off  whose  ignorance  the 
name  glanced  harmlessly.  "Well,  as  I  was  telling 
you " 

"But  this  is  delicious — this  is  a  conception  of  gen- 
ius," said  Mr.  Wangelbecker  all-embracingly,  after  he 
had  picked  up  Anna-Felicitas's  tablets  and  restored 
them  to  her  with  a  low  bow. 

"Charming,  charming,"  said  Mrs.  Wangelbecker, 
looking  round. 

"Real  cunning,"  said  Miss  Wangelbecker,  "as  they 
say  here."  And  she  laughed  at  Anna-Felicitas  with 
an  air  of  mutual  understanding. 

"Will  you  have  tea  or  coffee?"  asked  Anna-Felicitas 
nervously.  "Or  perhaps  you  would  prefer  frothed 
chocolate.     Each  of  these  beverages  can  be " 

"Delicious,  delicious,"  said  Mrs.  Wangelbeckerj 
enveloping  Anna-Felicitas  in  her  smile. 

"The  frothed  chocolate  is  very  delicious,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  with  a  kind  of  grave  nervousness. 


358        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Ah — charming,  charming,"  said  Mrs.  Wangel- 
becker,  obstinately  appreciative. 

"And  there's  ice-cream  as  well,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
her  eyes  on  her  tablets  so  as  to  avoid  seeing  the  Wangel- 
becker  smile.  "And — and  a  great  many  kinds  of 
cakes " 

"Well,  hadn't  we  better  sit  down  first,"  said  Mr. 
Wangelbecker  genially,  "or  are  all  the  tables  engaged?" 

"Oh  I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  blush- 
ing and  moving  hastily  towards  a  table  laid  for  three. 

"Ah — that's  better,"  said  Mr.  Wangelbecker,  follow- 
ing closely  on  her  heels.  "Now  we  can  go  into  the 
serious  business  of  ordering  what  we  shall  eat  com- 
fortably. But  before  I  sit  down  allow  me  to  present 
myself.  My  name  is  Wangelbecker.  An  honest  Ger- 
man name.  And  this  is  my  wife.  She  too  had  an 
honest  German  name  before  she  honoured  mine  by 
accepting  it — she  was  a  Niedermayer.  And  this  is  my 
daughter,  with  whom  I  trust  you  will  soon  be  friends." 

And  they  all  put  out  their  hands  to  be  shaken,  and 
Anna-Felicitas  shook  them. 

"Look  at  that  now,"  said  Mr.  Ridding  watching. 

"As  I  was  telling  you "  said  Mr.  Twist  irritably, 

for  really  why  should  Anna  II.  shake  hands  right  off 
with  strangers  .f^  Her  business  was  to  wait,  not  to  get 
shaking  hands.     He  must  point  out  to  her  very  plainly. 

"Pleased  to  meet  you  Miss  von  Twinkler,"  said  Mrs. 
Wangelbecker;  and  at  this  Anna-Felicitas  was  so  much 
startled  that  she  dropped  her  tablets  a  second  time. 

"As  they  say  here,"  laughed  Miss  Wangelbecker, 
again  with  that  air  of  mutual  comprehension. 

"But  they  don't,"  said  Anna  Felicitas  hurriedly, 
taking  her  tablets  from  the  restoring  hand  of  Mr. 
Wangelbecker  and  forgetting  to  thank  him. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        359 

"What?"  said  Mrs.  Wangelbecker.  "When  you 
are  both  so  charming  that  for  once  the  phrase  must  be 
sincere?" 

"Miss  von  Twinkler  means  she  finds  it  wiser  not  to 
use  her  title,"  said  Mr.  Wangelbecker.  "Well,  perhaps 
— perhaps.  Wiser  perhaps  from  the  point  of  view  of 
convenience.  Is  that  where  you  will  sit,  Gustchen? 
Still,  we  Germans  when  we  are  together  can  allow  our- 
selves the  refreshment  of  being  ourselves,  and  I  hope  to 
be  frequently  the  means  of  giving  you  the  relief,  you 
and  your  charming  sister,  of  hearing  yourselves  ad- 
dressed correctly.  It  is  a  great  family,  the  von  Twink- 
lers.  A  great  family.  In  these  sad  days  we  Germans 
must  hang  together " 

Anna-Felicitas  stood,  tablets  in  hand,  looking  help- 
lessly from  one  Wangelbecker  to  the  other.  The  situ- 
ation was  beyond  her. 

"But "  she  began;  then  stopped.     "Shall  I  bring 

you  tea  or  coffee?  "  she  ended  by  asking  again. 

"Well  now  this  is  amusing,"  said  Mr.  Wangel- 
becker, sitting  down  comfortably  and  leaning  his 
elbows  on  the  table.  "Isn't  it,  Gustchen.  To  see 
a  von  Twinkler  playing  at  waiting  on  us." 

"Charming,  charming,"  said  his  wife. 

"It's  real  sporting,"  said  his  daughter,  laughing  up  at 
Anna-Felicitas,  again  with  comprehension, — with,  al- 
most, a  wink.  "  You  must  let  me  come  and  help.  I'd 
look  nice  in  that  costume,  wouldn't  I  mother." 

"There  is  also  frothed  choc " 

"I  suppose,  now,  Mr.  Twist — he  must  be  completely 
in  sympathy "  interrupted  Mr.  Wangelbecker  con- 
fidentially, leaning  forward  and  lowering  his  voice  a 
little. 

Anna-Felicitas  gazed  at  him  blankly.     Some  more 


360        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

people  were  coming  in  at  the  door,  and  behind  them 
she  could  see  on  the  path  yet  more,  and  Anna-Rose 
was  in  the  pantry  fetching  the  tea  for  the  experts. 
"Would  you  mind  telling  me  what  I  am  to  bring  you?" 
she  asked.     "Because  I'm  afraid " 

Mr.  Wangelbecker  turned  his  head  in  the  direction 
she  was  looking. 

"Ah — "  he  said  getting  up,  "but  this  is  magnificent. 
Gustchen,  here  are  Mrs.  Kleinbart  and  her  sister — why, 
and  there  come  the  Diederichs — but  splendid,  splen- 
did  " 

"Say,"  said  Mr.  Ridding,  turning  to  Mr.  Twist  with 
a  congested  face,  "ever  been  to  Berlin.?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  annoyed  by  a  question  of  such 
wanton  irrelevance  flung  into  the  middle  of  his  sentence. 

"Well,  it's  just  like  this." 

"Like  this?"  repeated  Mr.  Twist. 

"Those  there,"  said  Mr.  Ridding,  jerking  his  head. 
"That  lot  there — see  'em  any  day  in  Berlin,  or  Frank- 
furt, or  any  other  of  their  confounded  towns." 

"I  don't  follow,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  very  shortly  indeed. 

"Germans,"  said  Mr.  Ridding. 

"Germans?" 

"Ail  Germans,"  said  Ridding. 

"All  Germans?" 

"Wangelbeckers  are  Germans,"  said  I.lr.  Ridding. 
"Didn't  you  know?" 

"No,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"So  are  the  ones  who've  just  come  in." 

"Germans?" 
All  Germans.     So  are  those  behind,  just  coming 


in." 


"Germans?" 
"All  Germans." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        361 

There  was  a  pause,  during  which  Mr.  Twist  stared 
round  the  room.  It  was  presenting  quite  a  populous 
appearance.     Then  he  said  slowly,  "Well  I'm  damned." 

And  Mr.  Ridding  for  the  first  time  looked  pleased 
with  Mr.  Twist.  He  considered  that  at  last  he  was 
talking  sense. 

"Mr.  Twist,"  he  said  heartily,  "I'm  exceedingly 
glad  you're  damned.  It  was  what  I  was  sure  at  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  you  would  be.     Shake  hands,  sir." 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THAT  evening  depression  reigned  in  The  Open 
Arms. 
Mr.  Twist  paced  up  and  down  the  tea-room, 
deep  in  thought  that  was  obviously  unpleasant  and 
perplexed;  Mrs.  Bilton  went  to  bed  abruptly,  after  a 
short  outpour  of  words  to  the  effect  that  she  had  never 
seen  so  many  Germans  at  once  before,  that  her  psyche 
was  disharmonious  to  Germans,  that  they  made  her  go 
goose-fleshy  just  as  cats  in  a  room  made  Mr.  Bilton  go 
goose-fleshy  in  the  days  when  he  had  flesh  to  go  it  with, 
that  she  hadn't  been  aware  the  inn  was  to  be  a  popular 
resort  and  rendezvous  for  Germans,  and  that  she  wished 
to  speak  alone  with  Mr.  Twist  in  the  morning;  while 
the  twins,  feeling  the  ominousness  of  this  last  sentence, 
— as  did  Mr.  Twist,  who  started  when  he  heard  it, — 
and  overcome  by  the  lassitude  that  had  succeeded  the 
shocks  of  the  afternoon,  a  lassitude  much  increased  by 
their  having  tried  to  finish  up  the  pailsful  of  left-over 
ices  and  the  huge  piles  of  cakes  slowly  soddening  in  their 
own  souring  cream,  went  out  together  on  to  the  moon- 
lit verandah  and  stood  looking  up  in  silence  at  the  stars. 
There  they  stood  in  silence,  and  thought  things  about 
the  immense  distance  and  indifference  of  those  bright, 
cold  specks,  and  how  infinitely  insignificant  after  all 
they,  the  Twinklers  were,  and  how  they  would  both  in 
any  case  be  dead  in  a  hundred  years.  And  this  last 
reflection  afforded  them  somehow  a  kind  of  bleak  and 
draughty  comfort. 

362 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        363 

Thus  the  first  evening,  that  was  to  have  been  so 
happy,  was  spent  by  everybody  in  silence  and  apart. 
Li  Koo  felt  the  atmosphere  of  oppression  even  in  his 
kitchen,  and  refrained  from  song.  He  put  away,  after 
dealing  with  it  cunningly  so  that  it  should  keep  until 
a  more  propitious  hour,  a  wonderful  drink  he  had  pre- 
pared for  supper  in  celebration  of  the  opening  day — 
"Me  make  li'l  celebrity,"  he  had  said,  squeezing 
together  strange  essences  and  fruits — and  he  moved 
softly  about  so  as  not  to  disturb  the  meditations  of  the 
master.  Li  Koo  was  perfectly  aware  of  what  had  gone 
wrong:  it  was  the  unexpected  arrival  to  tea  of  Germans. 
Being  a  member  of  the  least  blood-thirsty  of  the  nations, 
he  viewed  Germans  with  peculiar  disfavour  and  under- 
stood his  master's  prolonged  walking  up  and  down. 
Also  he  had  noted  through  a  crack  in  the  door  the  way 
these  people  of  blood  and  death  crowded  round  the 
white-lily  girls;  and  was  not  that  sufficient  in  itself  to 
cause  his  master's  numerous  and  rapid  steps  .^^ 

Numerous  indeed  that  evening  were  Mr.  Twist's 
steps.  He  felt  he  must  think,  and  he  could  think  better 
walking  up  and  down.  Why  had  all  those  Germans 
come.?  Why,  except  old  Ridding  and  the  experts, 
had  none  of  the  Americans  come?  It  was  very  strange. 
And  what  Germans!  So  cordial,  so  exuberant  to  the 
twins,  so  openly  gathering  them  to  their  bosoms,  as 
though  they  belonged  there.  And  so  cordial  too  to 
him,  approaching  him  in  spite  of  his  withdrawals, 
conveying  to  him  somehow,  his  disagreeable  impression 
had  been,  that  he  and  they  perfectly  understood  each 
other.  Then  Mrs.  Bilton;  was  she  going  to  give  trou- 
ble? It  looked  like  it.  It  looked  amazingly  like  it. 
Was  she  after  all  just  another  edition  of  his  mother, 
and  unable  to  discriminate  between  Germans  and  Ger- 


364        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

mans,  between  the  real  thing  and  mere  technicalities 
like  the  Twinklers?  It  is  true  he  hadn't  told  her  the 
twdns  were  German,  but  then  neither  had  he  told  her 
they  weren't.  He  had  been  passive.  In  Mrs.  Bilton's 
presence  passivity  came  instinctively.  Anything  else 
involved  such  extreme  and  unusual  exertion.  He  had 
never  had  the  least  objection  to  her  discovering  their 
nationality  for  herself,  and  indeed  had  been  surprised 
she  hadn't  done  so  long  ago,  for  he  felt  sure  she  would 
quickly  begin  to  love  the  Annas,  and  once  she  loved 
them  she  wouldn't  mind  what  their  father  had  happened 
to  be.  He  had  supposed  she  did  love  them.  How 
affectionately  she  had  kissed  them  that  very  afternoon 
and  wished  them  luck.  Was  all  that  nothing  .^^  Was 
lovableness  nothing,  and  complete  innocence,  after  all, 
in  the  matter  of  being  born,  when  weighed  against  the 
one  fact  of  the  von?  What  he  would  do  if  Mrs.  Bilton 
left  him  he  couldn't  imagine.  What  would  happen  to 
The  Open  Arms  and  the  twins  in  such  a  case,  his  wor- 
ried brain  simply  couldn't  conceive. 

Out  of  the  corner  of  his  eye  every  time  he  passed  the 
oi>en  door  on  to  the  verandah  he  could  see  the  two 
Annas  standing  motionless  on  its  edge,  their  up-turned 
faces,  as  they  gazed  at  the  stars,  white  in  the  moonlight 
and  very  serious.  Pathetic  children.  Pathetic,  soli- 
tary, alien  children.  What  were  they  thinking  of.^ 
He  wouldn't  mind  betting  it  was  their  mother. 

Mr.  Twist's  heart  gave  a  kind  of  tug  at  him.  His 
sentimental,  maternal  side  heaved  to  the  top.  A 
great  impulse  to  hurry  out  and  put  his  arms  round  them 
seized  him,  but  he  frowned  and  overcame  it.  He  didn't 
want  to  go  soft  now.  Nor  was  this  the  moment,  his 
nicely  brought  up  soul  told  him,  his  soul  still  echoing 
with  the  voice  of  Clark,  to  put  his  arms  round  them — 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        365 

this,  the  very  first  occasion  on  which  Mrs.  Bilton  had 
left  them  alone  with  him.  Whether  it  would  become 
proper  on  the  very  second  occasion  was  one  of  those 
questions  that  would  instantly  have  suggested  itself  to 
the  Annas  themselves,  but  didn't  occur  to  Mr.  Twist. 
He  merely  went  on  to  think  of  another  reason  against  it, 
which  was  the  chance  of  Mrs.  Bilton's  looking  out  of 
her  window  just  as  he  did  it.  She  might,  he  felt,  easily 
misjudge  the  situation,  and  the  situation,  he  felt,  was 
difficult  enough  already.  So  he  restrained  himself; 
and  the  Annas  continued  to  consider  infinite  space 
and  to  perceive,  again  with  that  feeling  of  dank  and 
unsatisfactory  consolation,  that  nothing  really  mat- 
tered. 

Next  day  immediately  after  breakfast  Mrs.  Bilton 
followed  him  into  his  office  and  gave  notice.  She 
called  it  formally  tendering  her  resignation.  She  said 
that  all  her  life  she  had  been  an  upholder  of  straight 
dealing,  as  much  in  herself  towards  others  as  in  others 
towards  herself 

"Mrs.  Bilton "  interrupted  Mr.  Twist,  only  it 

didn't  interrupt. 

She  had  also  all  her  life  been  intensely  patriotic, 
and  Mr.  Twist,  she  feared,  didn't  look  at  patriotism 
with  quite  her  single  eye 

"Mrs.  Bilton " 

As  her  eye  saw  it,  patriotism  was  among  other  things 
a  determination  to  resist  the  encroachments  of  for- 
eigners  

"Mrs.  Bilton " 


She  had  no  wish  to  judge  him,  but  she  had  still  less 
wish  to  be  mixed  up  with  foreigners,  and  foreigners  for 
her  at  that  moment  meant  Germans 

"Mrs.  Bilton " 


366        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS 

She  regretted,  but  psychically  she  would  never  be 
able  to  flourish  in  a  soil  so  largely  composed,  as 
the  soil  of  The  Open  Arms  appeared  to  be,  of  that 
nationality 

"Mrs.  Bilton " 


And  though  it  was  none  of  her  business,  still  she  must 
say  it  did  seem  to  her  a  pity  that  Mr.  Twist  with  his 
well-known  and  respected  American  name  should  be 
mixed  up 

"Mrs.  Bilton '' 


And  though  she  had  no  wish  to  be  inquisitive,  still 
she  must  say  it  did  seem  to  her  peculiar  that  Mr.  Twist 
should  be  the  guardian  of  two  girls  who,  it  was  clear 
from  what  she  had  overheard  that  afternoon,  were 
German 

Here  Mr.  Twist  raised  his  voice  and  shouted.  "Mrs. 
Bilton,"  he  shouted,  so  loud  that  she  couldn't  but  stop, 
"  if  you'll  guarantee  to  keep  quiet  for  just  five  minutes 
— sit  down  right  here  at  this  table  and  not  say  one  single 
thing,  not  one  single  thing  for  just  ^ve  minutes,"  he 
said,  banging  the  table,  "I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  Oh 
yes,  I'll  accept  your  resignation  at  the  end  of  that  time 
if  you're  still  set  on  leaving,  but  just  for  this  once  it's  me 
that's  going  to  do  the  talking." 

And  this  must  be  imagined  as  said  so  loud  that  only 
capital  letters  would  properly  represent  the  noise  Mr. 
Twist  made. 

Mrs.  Bilton  did  sit  down,  her  face  flushed  by  the 
knowledge  of  how  good  her  intentions  had  been  when 
she  took  the  post,  and  how  deceitful — she  was  forced  to 
think  it — Mr.  Twist's  were  when  he  offered  it.  She 
was  prepared,  however,  to  give  him  a  hearing.  It  was 
only  fair.  But  Mr.  Twist  had  to  burst  into  capitals 
several  times  before  he  had  done,  so  difficult  was  it  for 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        367 

Mrs.  Bilton,  even  when  she  had  agreed,  even  when  she 
herself  wished,  not  to  say  anything. 

It  wasn't  five  minutes  but  twenty  before  Mrs.  Bilton 
came  out  of  the  office  again.  She  went  straight  into 
the  garden,  where  the  Annas,  aware  of  the  interview 
going  on  with  Mr.  Twist,  had  been  lingering  anxiously, 
unable  at  so  crucial  a  moment  to  settle  to  anything, 
and  with  solemnity  kissed  them.  Her  eyes  were  very 
bright.  Her  face,  ordinarily  colourless  as  parchment, 
was  red.  Positively  she  kissed  them  without  saying 
a  single  word;  and  they  kissed  her  back  with  such  en- 
thusiasm, with  a  relief  that  made  them  hug  her  so  tight 
and  cling  to  her  so  close,  that  the  brightness  in  her  eyes 
brimmed  over  and  she  had  to  get  out  her  handkerchief 
and  wipe  it  away. 

"Gurls,"  said  Mrs.  Bilton,  "I  had  a  shock  yesterday, 
but  I'm  through  with  it.  You're  motherless.  I'm 
daughterless.     We'll  weld." 

And  with  this  unusual  brevity  did  Mrs.  Bilton  sum 
up  the  situation. 

She  was  much  moved.  Her  heart  was  touched;  and 
once  that  happened  nothing  could  exceed  her  capacity 
for  sticking  through  what  she  called  thick  and  thin  to 
her  guns.  For  years  Mr.  Bilton  had  occupied  the 
position  of  the  guns;  now  it  would  be  these  poor  orphans. 
No  Germans  could  frighten  her  away,  once  she  knew 
their  story;  no  harsh  judgments  and  misconceptions  of 
her  patriotic  friends.  Mr.  Twist  had  told  her  every- 
thing, from  the  beginning  on  the  St.  Luke,  harking  back 
to  Uncle  Arthur  and  the  attitude  of  England,  describ- 
ing what  he  knew  of  their  mother  and  her  death,  not 
even  concealing  the  part  his  own  mother  had  played  or 
that  he  wasn't  their  guardian  at  all.  He  made  the  most 
of  Mrs.  Bil ton's  silence;  and  as  she  listened  her  heart 


368        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

melted  within  her,  and  the  immense  store  of  grit  which 
was  her  peculiar  pride  came  to  the  top  and  once  and  for 
all  overwhelmed  her  prejudices.  But  she  couldn't 
think,  and  at  last  she  burst  out  and  told  Mr.  Twist 
she  couldn't  think,  why  he  hadn't  imparted  all  this  to 
her  long  ago. 

"  Ah,"  murmured  Mr.  Twist,  bowing  his  head  as  a  reed 
in  the  wind  before  the  outburst  of  her  released  volubility. 
i  Hope  once  more  filled  The  Open  Arms,  and  the  Twist 
party  looked  forward  to  the  afternoon  with  renewed 
cheerfulness.  It  had  just  happened  so  the  first  day, 
that  only  Germans  came.  It  was  just  accident.  Mr. 
Twist,  with  the  very  large  part  of  him  that  wasn't  his 
head,  found  himself  feeling  like  this  too  and  declining 
to  take  any  notice  of  his  intelligence,  which  continued 
to  try  to  worry  him. 

Yet  the  hope  they  all  felt  was  not  realized,  and  the 
second  afternoon  was  almost  exactly  like  the  first. 
Germans  came  and  clustered  round  the  Annas,  and 
made  friendly  though  cautious  advances  to  Mr.  Twist. 
.The  ones  who  had  been  there  the  first  day  came  again 
and  brought  others  with  them  worse  than  themselves, 
and  they  seemed  more  at  home  than  ever,  and  the  air 
was  full  of  rolling  r's — among  them,  INIr.  Twist  was 
unable  to  deny,  being  the  r's  of  his  blessed  Annas.  But 
theirs  were  such  little  r's,  he  told  himself.  They  rolled, 
it  is  true,  but  with  how  sweet  a  rolling.  While  as  for 
these  other  people — confound  it  all,  the  place  might 
really  have  been,  from  the  sounds  that  were  filling  it,  a 
Conditorei  Unter  den  Linden. 

All  his  doubts  and  anxieties  flocked  back  on  him  as 
time  passed  and  no  Americans  appeared.  Americans. 
How  precious.  How  clean,  and  straight,  and  admir- 
able.    Actually   he   had   sometimes,   he   remembered, 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        369 

thought  they  weren't.  What  an  aberration.  Actually 
he  had  been,  he  remembered,  impatient  with  them  when 
first  he  came  back  from  France.  What  folly.  Amer- 
icans. The  very  word  was  refreshing,  was  like  clear 
water  on  a  thirsty  day.  One  American,  even  one, 
coming  in  that  afternoon  would  have  seemed  to  Mr. 
Twist  a  godsend,  a  purifier,  an  emollient — ^like  some 
blessed  unction  dropped  from  above. 

But  none  appeared;  not  even  Mr.  Ridding. 

At  six  o'clock  it  was  quite  dark,  and  obviously  too 
late  to  go  on  hoping.  The  days  in  California  end 
abruptly.  The  sun  goes  down,  and  close  on  its  heels 
comes  night.  In  the  tea-room  the  charmingly  shaded 
lights  had  been  turned  on  some  time,  and  Mr.  Twist, 
watching  from  the  partly  open  door  of  his  office,  waited 
impatiently  for  the  guests  to  begin  to  thin  out.  But 
they  didn't.  They  took  no  notice  of  the  signals  of  late- 
ness, the  lights  turned  on,  the  stars  outside  growing 
bright  in  the  surrounding  blackness. 

Mr.  Twist  watched  angrily.  He  had  been  driven  into 
his  office  by  the  disconcerting  and  incomprehensible 
overtures  of  Mr.  Wangelbecker,  and  had  sat  there 
watching  in  growing  exasperation  ever  since.  When 
six  struck  and  nobody  showed  the  least  sign  of  going 
away  he  could  bear  it  no  longer,  and  touched  the  Kttle 
muffled  electric  bell  that  connected  him  to  Mrs.  Bilton 
in  what  Anna-Felicitas  called  a  mystical  union — Anna 
II.  was  really  excessively  tactless;  she  had  said  this  to 
Mrs.  Bilton  in  his  presence,  and  then  enlarged  on 
unions,  mystical  and  otherwise,  with  an  embarrassing 
abundance  of  imagery — by  buzzing  gently  against  her 
knee  from  the  leg  of  the  desk. 

She  laid  down  her  pen,  as  though  she  had  just  finished 
adding  up  a  column,  and  went  to  him. 


370        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIVIBUS 

"Now  don't  talk,"  said  l^fr.  Twist,  putting  up  an  ir- 
ritable hand  directly  she  came  in. 

JVIrs.  Bilton  looked  at  him  in  much  surprise.  "  Talk, 
Mr.  Twist ?  "  she  repeated.   "  Why  now,  as  though " 

"Don't  talk  I  say,  Mrs.  Bilton,  but  listen.  Listen 
now.  I  can't  stand  seeing  those  children  in  there.  It 
sheer  makes  my  gorge  rise.  I  want  you  to  fetch  them 
in  here — now  don't  talk — ^you  and  me'll  do  the  con- 
founded waiting — no,  no,  don't  talk — ^they're  to  stay 
quiet  in  here  till  the  last  of  those  Germans  have  gone* 
Just  go  and  fetch  them,  please  Mrs.  Bilton.  No,  no, 
we'll  talk  afterwards.  I'll  stay  here  till  they  come." 
And  he  urged  her  out  into  the  tea-room  again. 

The  guests  had  finished  their  tea  long  ago,  but  still 
sat  on,  for  they  were  very  comfortable.  Obviously  they 
were  thoroughly  enjoying  themselves,  and  all  were 
growing,  as  time  passed,  more  manifestly  at  home. 
They  were  now  having  a  kind  of  supper  of  ices  and  fruit- 
salads.  Five  dollars,  thought  the  sensible  Germans,  was 
after  all  a  great  deal  to  pay  for  afternoon  tea,  however 
good  the  cause  might  be  and  however  important  one's 
own  ulterior  motives;  and  since  one  had  in  any  case  to 
pay,  one  should  eat  what  one  could.  '  So  they  kept  the 
Annas  very  busy.  There  seemed  to  be  no  end,  thought 
the  Annas  as  they  ran  hither  and  thither,  to  what  a 
German  will  hold. 

Mrs.  Bilton  waylaid  the  heated  and  harried  Anna- 
Rose  as  she  was  carrying  a  tray  of  ices  to  a  party  she 
felt  she  had  been  carrying  ices  to  innumerable  times 
already.  The  little  curls  beneath  her  cap  clung  damply 
to  her  forehead.  Her  face  was  flushed  and  dis- 
tressed. What  with  having  to  carry  so  many  trays, 
and  remember  so  many  orders,  and  try  at  the  same 
time  to  escape  from  the  orderers  and  their  questions 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        371 

and  admiration,  she  was  in  a  condition  not  very  far 
from  tears. 

Mrs.  Bilton  took  the  tray  out  of  her  hands,  and  told 
her  Mr.  Twist  wanted  to  speak  to  her;  and  Anna-Rose 
was  in  such  a  general  bewilderment  that  she  felt  quite 
scared,  and  thought  he  must  be  going  to  scold  her.  She 
went  towards  the  office  reluctantly.  If  Mr.  Twist  were 
to  be  severe,  she  was  sure  she  wouldn't  be  able  not  to 
cry.  She  made  her  way  very  slowly  to  the  office,  and 
Mrs.  BUton  looked  round  the  room  for  the  other  one. 
There  was  no  sign  of  her.  Perhaps,  thought  Mrs.  Bil- 
ton, she  wa^  fetching  something  in  the  kitchen,  and 
would  appear  in  a  minute;  and  seeing  a  group  over  by 
the  entrance  door,  for  whom  the  tray  she  held  was 
evidently  destined,  gesticulating  to  her,  she  felt  she  had 
better  keep  them  quiet  first  and  then  go  and  look  for 
Anna-Felicitas . 

Mrs.  Bilton  set  her  teeth  and  plunged  into  her 
strange  new  duties.  Never  would  she  have  dreamed  it 
possible  that  she  should  have  to  carry  trays  to  Ger- 
mans. If  Mr.  Bilton  could  see  her  now  he  would  cer- 
tainly turn  in  his  grave.  Well,  she  was  a  woman  of  grit, 
of  adhesiveness  to  her  guns;  if  Mr.  Bilton  did  see  her 
and  did  turn  in  his  grave,  let  him;  he  would,  she  dared 
say,  be  more  comfortable  on  his  other  side  after  all  these 
years. 

For  the  next  few  minutes  she  hurried  hither  and 
thither,  and  waited  single-handed.  She  seemed  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  activity.  No  wonder  that  child  had 
looked  so  hot  and  bewildered.  Mr.  Twist  didn't  come 
and  help,  as  he  had  promised,  and  nowhere  was  there 
any  sign  of  Anna-Felicitas;  and  the  guests  not  only 
wanted  things  to  eat,  they  wanted  to  talk, — talk  and 
ask  questions.     Well,  she  would  wait  on  them,  but  she 


372        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

wouldn't  talk.  She  turned  a  dry,  parchment-like  face 
to  their  conversational  blandishments,  and  responded 
only  by  adding  up  their  bills.  Wonderful  are  the 
workings  of  patriotism.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life 
Mrs.  Bilton  was  grumbled  at  for  not  iilking. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

N  THE  office  Anna-Rose  found  Mr.  Twist  walking 
up  and  down. 

"See  here,"  he  said,  turning  on  her  when  she 
came  in,  "I'm  about  tired  of  looking  on  at  all  this  twit- 
tering round  that  lot  in  there.  You're  through  with 
that  for  to-day,  and  maybe  for  to-morrow  and  the  day 
after  as  well." 

He  waved  his  arm  at  the  deep  chair  that  had  been 
provided  for  his  business  meditations.  "You'll  sit 
down  in  that  chair  now,"  he  said  severely,  "and  stay 
put." 

Anna-Rose  looked  at  him  with  a  quivering  lip.  She 
went  rather  unsteadily  to  the  chair  and  tumbled  into  it. 
"I  don't  know  if  you're  angry  or  being  kind,"  she  said 
tremulously,  "but  whichever  it  is  I — I  wish  you 
wouldn't.  I — I  wish  you'd  manage  to  be  something 
that  isn't  either."  And,  as  she  had  feared,  she  began 
to  cry. 

"Anna-Rose,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  staring  down  at  her  in 
concern  mixed  with  irritation — out  there  all  those 
Germans,  in  here  the  weeping  child ;  what  a  day  he  was 
having — "for  heaven's  sake  don't  do  that." 

"I  know,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose.  "I  don't  want  to. 
It's  awful  being  so  natu — natu — naturally  liquid." 

"But  what's  the  matter? "asked  Mr.  Twist  helplessly. 

"Nothing,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose. 

He  stood  over  her  in  silence  for  a  minute,  his  hands  in 
his  pockets.     If  he  took  them  out  he  was  afraid  he  might 

373 


374        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

start  stroking  her,  and  she  seemed  to  him  to  be  exactly 
between  the  ages  when  such  a  form  of  comfort  would  be 
legitimate.  If  she  were  younger  .  .  .  but  she  was 
a  great  girl  now;  if  she  were  older  .  •  .  ah,  if  she 
were  older,  INlr.  Twist  could  imagine     .     .     . 

"You're  overtired,"  he  said  aloofly,  "That's  what 
you  are." 

"No,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose. 

"And  the  Germans  have  been  too  much  for  you." 

"They  haven't,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose,  her  pride  up  at 
the  suggestion  that  anybody  could  ever  be  that. 

"But  they're  not  going  to  get  the  chance  again," 
said  Mr.  Twist,  setting  his  teeth  as  much  as  they  would 
set,  which  wasn't,  owing  to  his  natural  kindliness,  any- 
thing particular.     "Mrs.  Bilton  and  me "     Then 

he  remembered  Anna-Felicitas.  "Why  doesn't  she 
come.'^"  he  asked. 

"Who?"  choked  Anna-Rose. 

"  The  other  one.     Anna  II.     Columbus." 

"I  haven't  seen  her  for  ages,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose, 
who  had  been  much  upset  by  Anna-Felicitas 's  pro- 
longed disappearance  and  had  suspected  her,  though 
she  couldn't  understand  it  after  last  night's  finishings 
up,  of  secret  unworthy  conduct  in  a  corner  with  ice- 
cream. 

Mr.  Twist  went  to  the  door  quickly  and  looked 
through.  "I  can't  see  her  either,"  he  said.  "Con- 
found them — ^what  have  they  done  to  her.f*  Worn  her 
out  too,  I  daresay.  I  shouldn't  wonder  if  she'd  crawled 
off  somewhere  and  were  crying  too." 

"Anna-F. — doesn't  crawl,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose,  "and 
she — doesn't  cry  but — I  wish  you'd  find — her." 

"Well,  will  you  stay  where  you  are  while  I'm  away, 
then.? "  he  said,  looking  at  her  from  the  door  uncertainly. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        375 

And  she  seemed  so  extra  small  over  there  in  the  enor- 
mous chair,  and  somehow  so  extra  motherless  as  she 
obediently  gurgled  and  choked  a  promise  not  to  move, 
that  he  found  himself  unable  to  resist  going  back  to  her 
for  a  minute  in  order  to  pat  her  head.  "There,  there," 
said  Mr.  Twist,  very  gently  patting  her  head,  his  heart 
yearning  over  her;  and  it  yearned  the  more  that,  the 
minute  he  patted,  her  sobs  got  worse;  and  also  the  more 
because  of  the  feel  of  her  dear  little  head. 

"You  little  bit  of  blessedness,"  murmured  Mr. 
Twist  before  he  knew  what  he  was  saying;  at  which  her 
sobs  grew  louder  than  ever, — ^grew,  indeed,  almost  into 
small  howls,  so  long  was  it  since  anybody  had  said 
things  like  that  to  her.  It  was  her  mother  who  used  to 
say  things  like  that;  things  almost  exactly  like  that. 

"Hush,"  said  Mr.  Twist  in  much  distress,  and  with 
one  anxious  eye  on  the  half-open  door,  for  Anna-Rose's 
sobs  were  threatening  to  outdo  the  noise  of  teacups  and 
ice-cream  plates,  "hush,  hush — here's  a  clean  hand- 
kerchief— you  just  wipe  up  your  eyes  while  I  fetch 
Anna  II.  She'll  worry,  you  know,  if  she  sees  you  like 
this, — ^hush  now,  hush — there,  there — and  I  expect 
she's  being  miserable  enough  already,  hiding  away  in 
some  corner.  You  wouldn't  like  to  make  her  more 
miserable,  would  you " 

And  he  pressed  the  handkerchief  into  Anna-Rose's 
hands,  and  feeling  much  flurried  went  away  to  search 
for  the  other  one  who  was  somewhere,  he  was  sure,  in  a 
state  of  equal  distress. 

He  hadn't  however  to  search.  He  found  her  im- 
mediately. As  he  came  out  of  the  door  of  his  office  into 
the  tea-room  he  saw  her  come  into  the  tea-room  from 
the  door  of  the  verandah,  and  proceed  across  it  towards 
the  pantry.     Why  the  verandah  .^^  wondered  Mr.  Twist. 


376        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

He  hurried  to  intercept  her.  Anyhow  she  wasn't 
either  about  to  cry  or  getting  over  having  done  it.  He 
saw  that  at  once  with  rehef.  Nor  was  she,  it  would 
seem,  in  any  sort  of  distress.  On  the  contrary,  Anna- 
Felicitas  looked  particularly  smug.  He  saw  that  at 
once  too,  with  surprise, — why  smug.^*  wondered  Mr. 
Twist.  She  had  a  pleased  look  of  complete  satisfaction 
on  her  face.  She  was  oblivious,  he  noticed,  as  she 
passed  between  the  tables,  of  the  guests  who  tried  in 
vain  to  attract  her  attention  and  detain  her  with  orders. 
She  wasn't  at  all  hot,  as  Anna-Rose  had  been,  nor 
rattled,  nor  in  any  way  discomposed;  she  was  just  smug. 
And  also  she  was  unusually,  extraordinarily  pretty. 
How  dared  they  all  stare  up  at  her  like  that  as  she 
passed?  And  try  to  stop  her.  And  want  to  talk  to 
her.  And  Wangelbecker  actually  laying  his  hand — no, 
his  paw;  in  his  annoyance  Mr.  Twist  wouldn't  admit 
that  the  object  at  the  end  of  Mr.  Wangelbecker 's  arm 
was  anything  but  a  paw — on  her  wrist  to  get  her  to 
listen  to  some  confounded  order  or  other.  She  took  no 
notice  of  that  either,  but  walked  on  towards  the  pantry. 
Placidly.     Steadily.     Obvious.     Smug. 

"You're  to  come  into  the  office,"  said  Mr.  Twist 
when  he  reached  her. 

She  turned  her  head  and  considered  him  with  ab- 
stracted eyes.  Then  she  appeared  to  remember  him. 
"Oh,  it's  you,"  she  said  amiably. 

"Yes.  It's  me  all  right.  And  you're  to  come  into 
the  office." 

"I  can't.     I'm  busy." 

"Now  Anna  IL,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  walking  beside 
her  towards  the  pantry  since  she  didn't  stop  but  con- 
tinued steadily  on  her  way,  "that's  triffing  with  the 
facts.     You've  been  in  the  garden.     I  saw  you  come  in. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        377 

Perhaps  you'll  tell  me  the  exact  line  of  business  you've 
been  engaged  in." 

"Waiting,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  placidly. 

"Waiting?  In  the  garden?  Where  it's  pitch  dark, 
and  there's  nobody  to  wait  on?" 

They  had  reached  the  pantry,  and  Anna-Felicitas 
gave  an  order  to  Li  Koo  through  the  serving  window 
before  answering;  the  order  was  tea  and  hot  cinnamon 
toast  for  one. 

"He's  having  his  tea  on  the  verandah,"  she  said, 
picking  out  the  most  delicious  of  the  little  cakes  from 
the  trays  standing  ready,  and  carefully  arranging  them 
on  a  dish.  "It  isn't  pitch  dark  at  all  there.  There's 
floods  of  light  coming  through  the  windows.  He  won't 
come  in." 

*'And  why  pray  won't  he  come  in?"  asked  Mr. 
Twist. 

"Because  he  doesn't  like  Germans." 

"And  who  pray  is  he?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"Well  I  do,"  burst  out  Mr.  Twist.  "It's  old  Rid- 
ding, of  course.  His  name  is  Ridding.  The  old  man 
who  was  here  yesterday.  Now  listen:  I  won't 
have " 

But  Anna-Felicitas  was  laughing,  and  her  eyes  had 
disappeared  into  two  funny  little  screwed-up  eyelashy 
slits. 

Mr.  Twist  stopped  abruptly  and  glared  at  her. 
These  Twinklers.  That  one  in  there  shaken  with  sobs, 
this  one  in  here  shaken  with  what  she  would  no  doubt 
call  quite  the  contrary.  His  conviction  became  sud- 
denly final  that  the  office  was  the  place  for  both  the 
Annjis.     He  and  Mrs.  Bilton  would  do  the  waiting. 

"I'll  take  this,"  he  said,  laying  hold  of  the  dish  of 


378        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

cakes.  "I'll  send  Mrs.  Bilton  for  the  tea.  Go  into  the 
office,  Anna-Felicitas.  Your  sister  is  there  and  wants 
you  badly.  I  don't  know,"  he  added,  as  Li  Koo  pushed 
the  tea-tray  through  the  serving  window,  "how  it 
strikes  you  about  laughter,  but  it  strikes  me  as  sheer 
silly  to  laugh  except  at  something." 

"Well,  I  was,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  unscrewing  her 
eyes  and  with  gentle  firmness  taking  the  plate  of  cakes 
from  him  and  putting  it  on  the  tray.  "I  was  laughing 
at  your  swift  conviction  that  the  man  out  there  is  Mr. 
Ridding.  I  don't  know  who  he  is  but  I  know  heaps 
of  people  he  isn't,  and  one  of  the  principal  ones  is  Mr. 
Ridding." 

"I'm  going  to  wait  on  him,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  taking 
the  tray. 

"It  would  be  most  unsuitable,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
taking  it  too. 

"Let  go,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  pulling. 

"Is  this  to  be  an  unseemly  wrangle.^^"  inquired  Anna- 
Felicitas  mildly;  and  her  eyes  began  to  screw  up  again. 

"If  you'll  oblige  me  by  going  into  the  office,"  he  said, 
having  got  the  tray,  for  Anna-Felicitas  was  never  one 
to  struggle,  "Mrs.  Bilton  and  me  will  do  the  rest  of  the 
waiting  for  to-day." 

He  went  out  grasping  the  tray,  and  made  for  the 
verandah.  His  appearance  in  this  new  r61e  was  greeted 
by  the  Germans  with  subdued  applause — subdued, 
because  they  felt  Mr.  Twist  wasn't  quite  as  cordial  to 
them  as  they  had  supposed  he  would  be,  and  they  were 
accordingly  being  a  little  more  cautious  in  their  methods 
with  him  than  they  had  been  at  the  beginning  of  the 
afternoon.  He  took  no  notice  of  them,  except  that  his( 
ears  turned  red  when  he  knocked  against  a  chair  and 
the  tray  nearly  fell  out  of  his  hands  and  they  all  cried 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        379 

out  Howp  Id.  Damn  them,  thought  Mr.  Twist.  Houp 
Id  indeed. 

In  the  farthest  corner  of  the  otherwise  empty  and 
very  chilly  verandah,  sitting  alone  and  staring  out  at 
the  stars,  was  a  man.  He  was  a  young  man.  He  was 
also  an  attractive  young  man,  with  a  thin  brown  face 
and  very  bright  blue  twinkling  eyes.  The  light  from 
the  window  behind  him  shone  on  him  as  he  turned  his 
head  when  he  heard  the  swing  doors  open,  and  Mr. 
Twist  saw  these  things  distinctly  and  at  once.  He  also 
saw  how  the  young  man's  face  fell  on  his,  Mr.  Twist's, 
appearance  with  the  tray,  and  he  also  saw  with  some 
surprise  how  before  he  had  reached  him  it  suddenly 
cleared  again.  And  the  young  man  got  up  too,  just 
as  Mr.  Twist  arrived  at  the  table — ^got  up  with  some 
little  difficulty,  for  he  had  to  lean  hard  on  a  thick  stick, 
but  yet  obviously  with  empressement. 

"You've  forgotten  the  sugar,"  said  Anna-Felicitas's 
gentle  voice  behind  Mr.  Twist  as  he  was  putting  down 
the  tray;  and  there  she  was,  sure  enough,  looking  smug- 
ger than  ever. 

"This  is  Mr.  Twist,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  with  an 
amiable  gesture.  "That  I  was  telling  you  about,"  she 
explained  to  the  young  man. 

"When.^"  asked  Mr.  Twist,  surprised. 

"  Before,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "  We  were  talking  for 
some  time  before  I  went  in  to  order  the  tea,  weren't  we?  " 
she  said  to  the  young  man,  angelically  smiling  at  him. 

"Rather,"  he  said;  and  since  he  didn't  on  this  intro- 
duction remark  to  Mr.  Twist  that  he  was  pleased  to 
meet  him,  it  was  plain  he  couldn't  be  an  American. 
Therefore  he  must  be  English.  Unless,  suddenly  sus- 
pected Mr.  Twist  who  had  Germans  badly  on  his  nerves 
that  day  and  was  ready  to  suspect  anything,  he  was 


380        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

German  cleverly  got  up  for  evil  purposes  to  appear 
English.  But  the  young  man  dispersed  these  suspicions 
by  saying  that  he  was  over  from  England  on  six  months' 
leave,  and  that  his  name  was  Elliott. 

"Like  us,"  said  Anna-Felicitas. 

The  young  man  looked  at  her  with  what  would  have 
been  a  greater  interest  than  ever  if  a  greater  interest 
had  been  possible,  only  it  wasn't. 

"^'\Tiat,  are  you  an  Elliott  too.^"  he  asked  eagerly. 

Anna-Fehcitas  shook  her  head.  "On  the  contrary," 
she  said,  "I'm  a  Twinkler.  And  so  is  my  sister.  What 
I  meant  was,  you're  like  us  about  coming  from  England. 
We've  done  that.  Only  our  leave  is  for  ever  and  ever. 
Or  the  duration  of  the  war." 

Mr.  Twist  waved  her  aside.  "Anna-Felicitas,"  he 
said,  "your  sister  is  waiting  for  you  in  the  office  and 
wants  you  badly.     I'll  see  to  Mr.  Elliott." 

"Tlliy  not  bring  your  sister  here.^"  said  the  young 
man,  who,  being  in  the  navy,  was  fertile  in  resource- 
fulness. And  he  smiled  at  Anna-Felicitas,  who  smiled 
back;  indeed,  they  did  nothing  but  smile  at  each  other. 

"I  think  that's  a  brilliant  idea,"  she  said;  and  turned 
to  IMr.  Twist.  "You  go,"  she  said  gently,  thereby 
proving  herself,  the  young  man  considered,  at  least  his 
equal  in  resourcefulness.  "It's  much  more  lilcely,"  she 
continued,  as  Mr.  Twist  gazed  at  her  without  moving, 
"that  she'll  come  for  you  than  for  me.  My  sister," 
she  explained  to  the  young  man,  "is  older  than  I  am." 

"Then  certainly  I  should  say  Mr.  Twist  is  more 
lil^ely " 

"Eut  only  about  twenty  minutes  older." 

"Y/hat.^  A  tv/in.^  I  say,  how  extraordinarily  jolly. 
Two  of  you?" 

"Anna-Felicitas,"  interrupted  Mr.  Twist,  "you  will 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        381 

go  to  your  sister  immediately.  She  needs  you.  She's 
upset.  I  don't  wish  to  draw  Mr.  Elliott  behind  the 
scenes  of  family  life,  but  as  nothing  seems  to  get  you 
into  the  office  you  force  me  to  tell  you  that  she  is  very, 
much  upset  indeed,  and  is  crying." 

"Crying?"  echoed  Anna-Felicitas.  "Christopher?" 
And  she  turned  and  departed  in  such  haste  that  the 
young  man,  who  luckily  was  alert  as  well  as  resourceful, 
had  only  just  time  to  lean  over  and  grab  at  a  chair  in 
her  way  and  pull  it  aside,  and  so  avert  a  deplorable 
catastrophe. 

"I  hope  it's  nothing  serious?  "  he  inquired  of  Mr.  Twist. 

"Oh  no.     ChHdren  wiU  cry." 

"Children?" 

Mr.  Twist  sat  down  at  the  table  and  lit  a  cigarette. 
"Tell  me  about  England,"  he  said.  "You've  been 
wounded,  I  see." 

"Leg,"  said  the  young  man,  still  standing  leaning  on 
his  stick  and  looking  after  Anna-Felicitas. 

"But  that  didn't  get  you  six  months'  leave." 

"Lungs,"  said  the  young  man,  looking  down  im- 
patiently at  Mr.  Twist. 

Then  the  swing  doors  swung  to,  and  he  sat  down  and 
poured  out  his  tea. 

He  had  been  in  the  battle  of  Jutland,  and  was 
rescued  after  hours  in  the  water.  For  months  he  was 
struggling  to  recover,  but  finally  tuberculosis  had 
developed  and  he  was  sent  to  California,  to  his  sister 
who  had  married  an  American  and  lived  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Acapulco.  This  Mr.  Twist  extracted  out 
of  him  by  diligent  questioning.  He  had  to  question 
very  diligently.  What  the  young  man  wanted  to  talk 
about  was  Anna-Felicitas;  but  every  time  he  tried  to, 
Mr.  Twist  headed  him  off. 


382       CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

And  she  didn't  come  back.  He  waited  and  waited, 
and  drank  and  drank.  When  the  teapot  was  empty 
he  started  on  the  hot  water.  Also  he  ate  all  the  cakes, 
more  and  more  deliberately,  eking  them  out  at  last  with 
slowly  smoked  cigarettes.  He  heard  all  about  France 
and  Mr.  Twist's  activities  there;  he  had  time  to  listen  to 
the  whole  story  of  the  ambulance  from  start  to  finish; 
and  still  she  didn't  come  back.  In  vain  he  tried  at  least 
to  get  Mr.  Twist  off  those  distant  fields,  nearer  home — 
to  the  point,  in  fact,  where  the  Twinklers  were.  Mr. 
Twist  wouldn't  budge.  He  stuck  firmly.  And  the 
Bwing  doors  remained  shut.  And  the  cakes  were  all 
eaten.     And  there  was  nothing  for  it  at  last  but  to  go. 

So  after  half-an-hour  of  solid  sitting  he  began  slowly 
to  get  up,  still  spreading  out  the  moments,  with  one 
eye  on  the  swing  doors.  It  was  both  late  and  cold. 
The  Germans  had  departed,  and  Li  Koo  had  lit  the 
usual  evening  wood  fire  in  the  big  fireplace.  It  blazed 
most  beautifully,  and  the  young  man  looked  at  it 
through  the  window  and  hesitated.. 

*'How  jolly,"  he  said. 

^Tirehght  is  very  pleasant,"  agreed  Mr.  Twist, 
who  had  got  up  too.  ♦ 

*'I  oughtn't  to  have  stayed  so  long  out  here,"  said 
the  young  man  with  a  little  shiver. 

"I  was  thinking  it  was  imwise,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Perhaps  I'd  better  go  in  and  warm  myself  a  bit 
before  leaving." 

"I  should  say  your  best  plan  is  to  get  back  quicldy 
to  your  sister  and  have  a  hot  bath  before  dinner,"  said 
Mr.  Twist. 

"Yes.  But  I  think  I  might  just  go  in  there  and  have 
a  cup  of  hot  coffee  first." 

"There  is  no  hot  coffee  at  this  hour,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        383 

looking  at  his  watch.  "We  close  at  half -past  six,  and 
it  is  now  ten  minutes  after." 

"  Then  there  seems  nothing  for  it  but  to  pay  my  bill 
and  go,"  said  the  young  man,  with  an  air  of  cheerful 
adaptation  to  what  couldn't  be  helped.  "I'll  just  nip 
in  there  and  do  that." 

"Luckily  there's  no  need  for  you  to  nip  anywhere," 
said  Mr.  Twist,  "for  surely  that's  a  type  of  movement 
unsuited  to  your  sick  leg.     You  can  pay  me  right  here." 

And  he  took  the  young  man's  five  dollars,  and  went 
with  him  as  far  as  the  green  gate,  and  would  have 
helped  him  into  the  waiting  car,  seeing  his  leg  wasn't 
as  other  legs  and  Mr.  Twist  was,  after  all,  humane,  but 
the  chauffeur  was  there  to  do  that;  so  he  just  watched 
from  the  gate  till  the  car  had  actually  started,  and  then 
went  back  to  the  house. 

He  went  back  slowly,  perturbed  and  anxious,  his  eyes 
on  the  ground.  This  second  day  had  been  worse  than 
the  first.  And  besides  the  continued  and  remarkable 
absence  of  Americans  and  the  continued  and  remarkable 
presence  of  Germans,  there  was  a  slipperiness  suddenly 
developed  in  the  Annas.  He  felt  insecure;  as  though 
he  didn't  understand,  and  hadn't  got  hold.  They 
seemed  to  him  very  like  eels.  And  this  Elliott — what 
did  he  think  he  was  after,  anyway? 

For  the  second  time  that  afternoon  Mr.  Twist  set 
his  teeth.  He  defied  Elliott.  He  defied  the  Germans. 
He  would  see  this  thing  successful,  this  Open  Arms 
business,  or  his  name  wasn't  Twist.  And  he  stuck  out 
his  jaw — or  would  have  stuck  it  out  if  he  hadn't  been 
prevented  by  the  amiable  weakness  of  that  feature. 
But  spiritually  and  morally,  when  he  got  back  into  the 
house  he  was  all  jaw. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THAT  night  he  determined  he  would  go  into 
Acapulco  next  morning  and  drop  in  at  his  bank 
and  at  his  lawyer's  and  other  places,  and  see  if 
he  could  pick  up  anything  that  would  explain  why 
Americans  wouldn't  come  and  have  tea  at  The  Open 
Arms.  He  even  thought  he  might  look  up  old  Ridding. 
He  didn't  sleep.     He  lay  all  night  thinking. 

The  evening  had  been  spent  tete-a-tete  with  Anna- 
Felicitas.  Anna-Rose  was  in  bed,  sleeping  off  her 
tears;  Mrs.  Bilton  had  another  headache,  and  disap- 
peared early;  so  h^  was  left  with  Anna-Felicitas,  who 
slouched  about  abstractedly  eating  up  the  remains  of 
ice-cream.  She  didn't  talk,  except  once  to  remark  a 
little  pensively  that  her  inside  was  dreadfully  full  of 
cold  stuff,  and  that  she  knew  now  what  it  must  feel  like 
to  be  a  mausoleum;  but,  eyeing  her  sideways  as  he  sat 
before  the  fire,  Mr.  Twist  could  see  that  she  was  still 
smug.  He  didn't  talk  either.  He  felt  he  had  nothing 
at  present  to  say  to  Anna-Felicitas  that  would  serve  a 
useful  purpose,  and  was,  besides,  reluctant  to  hear  any 
counter-observations  she  might  make.  Watchfulness 
was  what  was  required.  Silent  watchfulness.  And 
wariness.  And  firmness.  In  fact  all  the  things  that 
were  most  foreign  to  his  nature,  thought  INIr.  Twist, 
resentful  and  fatigued. 

Next  morning  he  had  a  cup  of  coffee  in  his  room, 
brought  by  Li  Koo,  and  then  drove  himself  into  Aca- 
pulco in  his  Ford  without  seeing  the  others.     It  was  an- 

384 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        385 

other  of  the  perfect  days  which  he  was  now  beginning 
to  take  as  a  matter  of  course,  so  many  had  there  been 
since  his  arrival.  People  talked  of  the  wet  days  and  of 
their  desolate  abundance  once  they  started,  but  there 
had  been  as  yet  no  sign  of  them.  The  mornings  suc- 
ceeded each  other,  radiant  and  calm.  November  was 
merging  into  December  in  placid  loveliness.  "  Oh  yes," 
said  Mr.  Twist  to  himself  sardonically,  as  he  drove  down 
the  sun-flecked  lane  in  the  gracious  light,  and  crickets 
chirped  at  him,  and  warm  scents  drifted  across  his  face, 
and  the  flowers  in  the  grass,  standing  so  bright  and  un- 
ruffled that  they  seemed  almost  as  profoundly  pleased 
as  Anna-Felicitas,  nodded  at  him,  and  everything  was 
obviously  perfectly  contented  and  happy,  "Oh  yes — I 
daresay."  And  he  repeated  this  remark  several  times 
as  he  looked  round  him, — he  couldn't  but  look,  it  was 
all  so  beautiful.  These  things  hadn't  to  deal  with 
Twinklers.  No  wonder  they  could  be  calm  and  bright. 
So  could  he,  if 

He  turned  a  corner  in  the  lane  and  saw  some  way 
down  it  two  figures,  a  man  and  a  girl,  sitting  in  the 
grass  by  the  wayside.  Lovers,  of  course.  "Oh  yes — 
I  daresay,"  said  Mr.  Twist  again,  grimly.  They  hadn't 
to  deal  with  Twinklers  either.  No  wonder  they  could 
sit  happily  in  the  grass.     So  could  he,  if 

At  the  noise  of  the  approaching  car,  with  the  smile 
of  the  last  thing  they  had  been  saying  still  on  their 
faces,  the  two  turned  their  heads,  and  it  was  that  man 
Elliott  and  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Hello,"  called  out  Mr.  Twist,  putting  on  the  brakes 
so  hard  that  the  Ford  skidded  sideways  along  the  road 
towards  them. 

"Hello,"  said  the  young  man  cheerfully,  waving  his 
stick. 


386        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Hello,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  mildly,  watching  his 
sidelong  approach  with  complacent  interest. 

She  had  no  hat  on,  and  had  evidently  escaped  from 
Mrs.  Bilton  just  as  she  was.  Escaped,  however,  was 
far  too  violent  a  word  Mr.  Twist  felt;  sauntered  from 
Mrs.  Bilton  better  described  her  effect  of  natural  and 
comfortable  arrival  at  the  place  where  she  was. 

"I  didn't  loiow  you  were  here,"  said  Mr.  Twist, 
addressing  her  when  the  car  had  stopped.  He  felt 
it  was  a  lame  remark.  He  had  torrents  of  things  he 
wanted  to  say,  and  this  was  all  that  came  out. 

Anna-Felicitas  considered  it  placidly  for  a  moment, 
and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  wasn't  worth  an- 
swering, so  she  didn't. 

"Going  into  the  town?"  inquired  Elliott  pleasantly. 

"Yes.     I'll  give  you  a  lift." 

"No  thanks.     I've  just  come  from  there." 

"I  see.  Then  yoiid  better  come  with  me,"  said  Mr* 
Twist  to  Anna-Felicitas. 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't.     I'm  rather  busy  this  morning." 

"Really,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  in  a  voice  of  concentrated 
sarcasm.  But  it  had  no  effect  on  Anna-Felicitas.  She 
continued  to  contemplate  him  with  perfect  goodwill. 

He  hesitated  a  moment.  What  could  he  do.^^  Noth- 
ing, that  he  could  see,  before  the  young  man;  nothing 
that  wouldn't  make  him  ridiculous.  He  felt  a  fool 
already.  He  oughtn't  to  have  pulled  up.  He  ought 
to  have  just  waved  to  them  and  gone  on  his  way,  and 
afterwards  in  the  seclusion  of  his  office  issued  very 
plain  directions  to  Anna-Felicitas  as  to  her  future 
conduct.  Sitting  by  the  roadside  like  that!  Openly; 
before  everybody;  with  a  young  man  she  had  never 
seen  twenty -four  hours  ago. 

He  jammed  in  the  gear  and  let  the  clutch  out  with 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        387 

such  a  jerk  that  the  car  leaped  forward.  Elliott  waved 
his  stick  again.  Mr.  Twist  responded  by  the  briefest 
touch  of  his  cap,  and  whirred  down  the  road  out  of 
sight. 

"Does  he  mind  your  sitting  here.^^"  asked  Elliott. 
*It  would  be  very  unreasonable,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
gently.     "One  has  to  sit  somewhere." 

And  he  laughed  with  delight  at  this  answer  as  he 
laughed  with  delight  at  everything  she  said,  and  he 
told  her  for  the  twentieth  time  that  she  was  the  most 
wonderful  person  he  had  ever  met,  and  she  settled  down 
to  listen  again,  after  the  interruption  caused  by  Mr. 
Twist,  with  a  ready  ear  and  the  utmost  complacency 
to  these  agreeable  statements,  and  began  to  wonder 
whether  perhaps  after  all  she  mightn't  at  last  be  about 
to  fall  in  love. 

In  the  new  interest  of  this  possibility  she  turned  her 
head  to  look  at  him,  and  he  told  her  tumultuously — for 
being  a  sailor-man  he  went  straight  ahead  on  great 
waves  when  it  came  to  love-making — that  her  eyes  were 
as  if  pansies  had  married  stars. 

She  turned  her  head  away  again  at  this,  for  though  it 
sounded  lovely  it  made  her  feel  a  little  shy  and  unpro- 
vided with  an  answer;  and  then  he  said,  again  tumul- 
tuously, that  her  ear  was  the  most  perfect  thing  ever 
stuck  on  a  girl's  cheek,  and  would  she  mind  turning 
her  face  to  him  so  that  he  might  see  if  she  had  another 
just  like  it  on  the  other  side. 

She  blushed  at  this,  because  she  couldn't  remember 
whether  she  had  washed  it  lately  or  not — one  so  easily 
forgot  one's  ears;  there  were  so  many  different  things 
to  wash — and  he  told  her  that  when  she  blushed  it  was 
like  the  first  wild  rose  of  the  first  summer  morning  of  the 
world. 


388        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

At  this  Anna-Felicitas  was  quite  overcome,  and  sub- 
sided into  a  condition  of  blissful,  quiescent  waiting  for 
whatever  might  come  next.  Fancy  her  face  remind- 
ing him  of  all  those  nice  things.  She  had  seen  it  every 
day  for  years  and  years  in  the  looking-glass,  and  not 
noticed  anything  particular  about  it.  It  had  seemed 
to  her  just  a  face.  Something  you  saw  out  of,  and  ate 
with,  and  had  to  clean  whatever  else  you  didn't  when 
you  were  late  for  breakfast,  because  there  it  was  and 
couldn't  be  hidden, — an  object  remote  indeed  from 
pansies,  and  stars,  and  beautiful  things  like  that. 

She  would  have  liked  to  explain  this  to  the  young 
man,  and  point  out  that  she  feared  his  imagination  ran 
ahead  of  the  facts  and  that  perhaps  when  his  leg  was  well 
again  he  would  see  things  more  as  they  were,  but  to  her 
surprise  when  she  turned  to  him  to  tell  him  this  she 
found  she  was  obliged  to  look  away  at  once  again.  She 
couldn't  look  at  him.  Fancy  that  now,  thought  Anna- 
Felicitas,  attentively  gazing  at  her  toes.  And  he  had 
such  dear  eyes;  and  such  a  dear,  eager  sort  of  face.  All 
the  more,  then,  she  reasoned,  should  her  own  eyes  have 
dwelt  with  pleasure  on  him.  But  they  couldn't. 
"Dear  me,"  she  murmured,  watching  her  toes  as  care- 
fully as  if  they  might  at  any  moment  go  away  and  leave 
her  there. 

"I  know,"  said  Elliott.  "You  think  I'm  talking 
fearful  flowery  stuff.  I'd  have  said  Dear  me  at  myself 
three  years  ago  if  I  had  ever  caught  myself  thinking  in 
terms  of  stars  and  roses.  But  it's  all  the  beastly  blood 
and  muck  of  the  war  that  does  it, — sends  one  back  with 
a  rush  to  things  like  that.  Makes  one  shameless. 
Why,  I'd  talk  to  you  about  God  now  without  turning 
a  hair.  Nothing  would  have  induced  me  so  much  as  to 
mention  seriously  that  I'd  even  heard  of  him  three 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        389 

years  ago.  Why,  I  write  poetry  now.  We  all  write 
poetry.  And  nobody  would  mind  now  being  seen  say- 
ing their  prayers.  Why,  if  I  were  back  at  school  and 
my  mother  came  to  see  me  I'd  hug  her  before  every- 
body in  the  middle  of  the  street.  Do  you  realize  what 
a  tremendous  change  that  means,  you  little  girl  who's 
never  had  brothers?  You  extraordinary  adorable  little 
lovely  thing?" 

And  oif  he  was  again. 

"When  I  was  small,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  after  a 
while,  still  watching  her  feet,  "I  had  a  governess  who 
urged  me  to  consider,  before  I  said  anything,  whether 
it  were  the  sort  of  thing  I  would  like  to  say  in  the  hear- 
ing of  my  parents.  Would  you  like  to  say  what  you're 
.saying  to  me  in  the  hearing  of  your  parents?  " 

"Hate  to,"  said  Elliott  promptly. 

"Well,  then,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  gentle  but  dis- 
appointed. She  rather  wished  now  she  hadn't  men- 
tioned it. 

"I'd  take  you  out  of  earshot,"  said  Elliott. 

She  was  much  relieved.  She  had  done  what  she  felt 
might  perhaps  be  regarded  by  Aunt  Alice  as  her  duty  as 
a  lady,  and  could  now  give  herself  up  with  a  calm  con- 
science to  hearing  whatever  else  he  might  have  to  say. 

And  he  had  an  incredible  amount  to  say,  and  all  of  it 
of  the  most  highly  gratifying  nature.  On  the  whole, 
looking  at  it  all  round  and  taking  one  thing  with  an- 
other, Anna-Felicitas  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this 
was  the  most  agreeable  and  profitable  morning  she  had 
ever  spent.  She  sat  there  for  hours,  and  they  all  flew. 
People  passed  in  cars  and  saw  her,  and  it  didn't  disturb 
her  in  the  least.  She  perfectly  remembered  she  ought 
to  be  helping  Anna-Rose  pick  and  arrange  the  flowers 
for  the  tea-tables,  and  she  didn't  mind.    She  knew 


390        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose  would  be  astonished  and  angry  at  her 
absence,  and  it  left  her  unmoved.  By  midday  she  was 
hopelessly  compromised  in  the  eyes  of  Acapulco,  for 
the  people  who  had  motored  through  the  lane  told  the 
people  who  hadn't  what  they  had  seen.  Once  a  great 
car  passed  with  a  small  widow  in  it,  who  looked  aston- 
ished when  she  saw  the  pair  but  had  gone  almost  before 
Elliott  could  call  out  and  wave  to  her. 

"That's  my  sister,"  he  said.  "You  and  she  will  love 
each  other." 

"Shall  we?"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  much  pleased  by 
this  suggestion  of  continuity  in  their  relations;  and 
remarked  that  she  looked  as  if  she  hadn't  got  a  husband. 

"She  hasn't.  Poor  little  thing.  Rotten  luck.  Rot- 
ten. I  hate  people  to  die  now.  It  seems  so  infernally 
unnatural  of  them,  when  they're  not  in  the  fighting. 
He's  only  been  dead  a  month.  And  poor  old  Dellogg 
was  such  a  decent  chap.  She  isn't  going  anywhere 
yet,  or  I'd  bring  her  up  to  tea  this  afternoon.  But  it 
doesn't  matter.  I'll  take  you  to  her." 
»  "Shall  you.f^ "said  Anna-Felicitas, again  much  pleased. 
Dellogg.  The  name  swam  through  her  mind  and  swam 
out  again.  She  was  too  busy  enjoying  herself  to  re- 
mark it  and  its  coincidences  now. 

"Of  course.     It's  the  first  thing  one  does." 

"What  first  thing.?" 

"To  take  the  divine  girl  to  see  one's  relations. 
Once  one  has  found  her.  Once  one  has  had" — ^his  voice 
fell  to  a  whisper — "the  God-given  luck  to  find  her." 
And  he  laid  his  hand  very  gently  on  hers,  which  were 
clasped  together  in  her  lap. 

This  was  a  situation  to  which  Anna-Felicitas  wasn't 
accustomed,  and  she  didn't  know  what  to  do  with  it. 
She  looked  down  at  the  hand  lying  on  hers,  and  con- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        391 

sidered  it  without  moving.  Elliott  was  quite  silent 
now,  and  she  knew  he  was  watching  her  face.  Ought 
she,  perhaps,  to  be  going?  Was  this,  perhaps,  one  of 
the  moments  in  life  when  the  truly  judicious  went? 
But  what  a  pity  to  go  just  when  everything  was  so 
pleasant.  Still,  it  must  be  nearly  lunch-time.  What 
would  Aunt  Alice  do  in  a  similar  situation?  Go  home 
to  lunch,  she  was  sure.  Yet  what  was  lunch  when 
one  was  rapidly  arriving,  as  she  was  sure  now  that  she 
was,  at  the  condition  of  being  in  love?  She  must  be, 
or  she  wouldn't  like  his  hand  on  hers.  And  she  did  like 
it. 

She  looked  down  at  it,  and  found  that  she  wanted  to 
stroke  it.  But  would  Aunt  Alice  stroke  it?  No;Anna- 
Felicitas  felt  fairly  clear  about  that.  Aunt  Alice 
wouldn't  stroke  it;  she  would  take  it  up,  and  shake  it, 
and  say  good-bye,  and  walk  off  home  to  lunch  like  a 
lady.  Well,  perhaps  she  ought  to  do  that.  Christo- 
pher would  probably  think  so  too.  But  what  a  pity. 
.  .  .  Still,  behaviour  was  behaviour;  ladies  were 
ladies. 

She  drew  out  her  right  hand  with  this  polite  inten- 
tion, and  instead — Anna-Felicitas  never  knew  how  it 
happened — she  did  nothing  of  the  sort,  but  quite  the 
contrary :  she  put  it  softly  on  the  top  of  his. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

MEANWHILE  Mr.  Twist  had  driven  on  towards 
Acapulco  in  a  state  of  painful  indecision. 
Should  he  or  shouldn't  he  take  a  turning  he 
knew  of  a  couple  of  miles  farther  that  led  up  an  unused 
and  practically  undrivable  track  back  by  the  west  side 
to  The  Open  Arms,  and  instruct  Mrs.  Bilton  to  proceed 
at  once  down  the  lane  and  salvage  Anna-Felicitas? 
Should  he  or  shouldn't  he?  For  the  first  mile  he  de- 
cided he  would;  then,  as  his  anger  cooled,  he  began  to 
think  that  after  all  he  needn't  worry  much.  The 
Annas  were  luckily  too  young  for  serious  philandering, 
and  even  if  that  Elliott  didn't  realize  this,  owing  to 
Anna-Felicitas's  great  length,  he  couldn't  do  much 
before  he,  Mr.  Twist,  was  back  again  along  the  lane. 
In  this  he  under-estimated  the  enterprise  of  the  British 
Navy,  but  it  served  to  calm  him;  so  that  when  he  did 
reach  the  turning  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to  continue 
en  his  way  to  Acapulco. 

There  he  spent  some  perplexing  and  harassing 
hours. 

At  the  bank  his  reception  was  distinctly  chilly.  He 
wasn't  used,  since  his  teapot  had  been  on  the  market, 
to  anything  but  warmth  when  he  went  into  a  bank. 
On  this  occasion  even  the  clerks  were  cold;  and  when 
after  difficulty — actual  difficulty — ^he  succeeded  in  see- 
ing the  manager,  he  couldn't  but  perceive  his  unusual 
reserve.  He  then  remembered  what  he  had  put  down 
to  mere  accident  at  the  time,  that  as  he  drove  up  Main 

292 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        393 

Street  half  an  hour  before,  all  the  people  he  knew  had 
been  looking  the  other  way. 

From  the  bank,  where  he  picked  up  nothing  in  the 
way  of  explanation  of  the  American  avoidance  of  The 
Open  Arms,  the  manager  going  dumb  at  its  mere  men- 
tion, he  went  to  the  solicitors  who  had  arranged  the 
sale  of  the  inn,  and  again  in  the  street  people  he  knew 
looked  the  other  way.  The  solicitor,  it  appeared, 
wouldn't  be  back  till  the  afternoon,  and  the  clerk,  an 
elderly  person  hitherto  subservient,  was  curiously 
short  about  it. 

By  this  time  Mr.  Twist  was  thoroughly  uneasy,  and 
he  determined  to  ask  the  first  acquaintance  he  met  what 
the  matter  was.  But  he  couldn't  find  anybody.  Every 
one,  his  architect,  his  various  experts — those  genial  and 
frolicsome  young  men — were  either  engaged  or  away 
on  business  somewhere  else.  He  set  his  teeth,  and 
drove  to  the  Cosmopolitan  to  seek  out  old  Ridding — it 
wasn't  a  place  he  drove  to  willingly  after  his  recent 
undignified  departure,  but  he  was  determined  to  get  to 
the  bottom  of  this  thing — and  walking  into  the  parlour 
was  instantly  aware  of  a  hush  falling  upon  it,  a  holding 
of  the  breath. 

In  the  distance  he  saw  old  Ridding, — distinctly; 
and  distinctly  he  saw  that  old  Ridding  saw  him.  He 
was  sitting  at  the  far  end  of  the  great  parlour,  facing 
the  entrance,  by  the  side  of  something  vast  and  black 
heaped  up  in  the  adjacent  chair.  He  had  the  look  on 
his  pink  and  naturally  pleasant  face  of  one  who  has 
abandoned  hope.  On  seeing  Mr.  Twist  a  ray  of  interest 
lit  him  up,  and  he  half  rose.  The  formless  mass  in  the 
next  chair  which  Mr.  Twist  had  taken  for  inanimate 
matter,  probably  cushions  and  wraps,  and  now  per- 
ceived was  one  of  the  higher  mammals,  put  out  a  hand 


394        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

and  said  something, — at  least,  it  opened  that  part  of 
its  face  which  is  called  a  mouth  but  which  to  Mr.  Twist, 
in  the  heated  and  abnormal  condition  of  his  brain, 
seemed  like  the  snap-to  of  some  great  bag, — and  at 
that  moment  a  group  of  people  crossed  the  hall  in  front 
of  old  Ridding,  and  when  the  path  was  again  clear  the 
chair  that  had  contained  him  was  empty.  He  had  dis- 
appeared. Completely.  Only  the  higher  mammal 
was  left,  watching  Mr.  Twist  with  heavy  eyes  like  two 
smouldering  coals. 

He  couldn't  face  those  eyes.  He  did  try  to,  and 
hesitated  while  he  tried,  and  then  he  found  he  couldn't; 
so  he  swerved  away  to  the  right,  and  went  out  quickly 
by  the  side  door. 

There  was  now  one  other  person  left  who  would 
perhaps  clear  him  up  as  to  the  meaning  of  all  this, 
and  he  w^as  the  lawyer  he  had  gone  to  about  the 
guardianship.  True  he  had  been  angry  with  him 
at  the  time,  but  that  was  chiefly  because  he  had 
been  angry  with  himself.  At  bottom  he  had  carried 
away  an  impression  of  friendliness.  To  this  man  he 
would  now  go  as  a  last  resource  before  turning  back 
home,  and  once  more  he  raced  up  Main  Street  in  his 
Ford,  producing  by  these  repeated  appearances  an 
effect  of  agitation  and  restlessness  that  wasn't  lost  on 
the  beholders. 

The  lawyer  was  in  his  office,  and  disengaged.  After 
his  morning's  experience  Mr.  Twist  was  quite  surprised 
and  much  relieved  by  being  admitted  at  once.  He  was 
received  neither  coldly  nor  warmly,  but  with  unmis- 
takable interest. 

"I've  come  to  consult  you,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

The  lawyer  nodded.  He  hadn't  supposed  he  had 
come  not  to  consult  him,  but  he  was  used  to  patience 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        395 

with  clients,  and  he  well  knew  their  preference  in  con- 
versation for  the  self-evident. 

"I  want  a  straight  answer  to  a  straight  question," 
said  Mr.  Twist,  his  great  spectacles  glaring  anxiously 
at  the  lawyer  who  again  nodded. 

"Go  on,"  he  said,  as  Mr.  Twist  paused. 

"What  I  want  to  know  is,"  burst  out  Mr.  Twist, 
•'what  the  hell " 

The  lawyer  put  up  a  hand.  "One  moment,  Mr. 
Twist,"  he  said.     "Sorry  to  interrupt " 

And  he  got  up  quickly,  and  went  to  a  door  in  the 
partition  between  his  office  and  his  clerks'  room. 

"You  may  go  out  to  lunch  now,"  he  said,  opening  it 
a  crack. 

He  then  shut  it,  and  came  back  to  his  seat  at  the  table. 

"Yes,  Mr.  Twist.?"  he  said,  settling  down  again. 
"You  were  inquiring  what  the  hell ?" 

"Well,  I  was  about  to,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  suddenly 

soothed,  "but  you're  so  calm " 

Of  course  I'm  calm.     I'm  a  quietly  married  man." 
I  don't  see  what  that's  got  to  do  with  it." 
'Everything.     For   some    dispositions,    everything. 
Mine  is  one.     Yours  is  another." 

"Well,  I  guess  I've  not  come  here  to  talk  about 
marriage.     What  I  want  to  know  is  why " 

"Quite  so,"  said  the  lawyer,  as  he  stopped.  "And  I 
can  tell  you.  It's  because  your  inn  is  suspected  of 
being  run  in  the  interests  of  the  German  Government." 

A  deep  silence  fell  upon  the  room.  The  lawyer 
watched  Mr.  Twist  with  a  detached  and  highly  intelli- 
gent interest.  Mr.  Twist  stared  at  the  lawyer,  his  kind, 
lavish  lips  fallen  apart.  Anger  had  left  him.  This 
blow  excluded  anger.  There  was  only  room  in  him 
for  blank  astonishment. 


« 


396        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"You  know  about  my  teapot?"  he  said  at  last. 

"Try  me  again,  Mr.  Twist." 

"It's  on  every  American  breakfast  table." 

"Including  my  own." 

"They  wouldn't  use  it  if  they  thought " 

"My  dear  sir,  they're  not  going  to,"  said  the  lawyer. 
"They're  proposing,  among  other  little  plans  for 
conveying  the  general  sentiment  to  your  notice,  to  boy- 
cott the  teapot.  It  is  to  be  put  on  an  unofficial  black 
list.     It  is  to  be  banished  from  the  hotels." 

Mr.  Twist's  stare  became  frozen.  The  teapot  boy- 
cotted.'^ The  teapot  his  mother  and  sister  depended  on, 
and  The  Open  Arms  depended  on,  and  all  his  happiness, 
and  the  twins  .^^  He  saw  the  rumour  surging  over  Amer- 
ica in  great  swift  waves,  that  the  proceeds  of  the  Twist 
Non-Trickier  were  used  for  Germany.  He  saw — ^but 
what  didn't  he  see  in  that  moment  of  submerged  horror? 
Then  he  seemed  to  come  to  the  surface  again  and  re- 
sume reason  with  a  gasp.     "Why?"  he  asked. 

"Why  they're  wanting  to  boycott  the  teapot?" 

"No.     Why  do  they  think  the  inn " 

"The  Miss  Twinklers  are  German." 

"Half." 

"The  half  that  matters — ^begging  my  absent  wife's 
pardon.  I  know  all  about  that,  you  see.  You  started 
me  off  thinking  them  over  by  that  ward  notion  of  yours. 
It  didn't  take  me  long.  It  was  pretty  transparent. 
So  transparent  that  my  opinion  of  the  intelligence  of 
my  fellow-townsfolk  has  considerably  lowered.  But 
we  live  in  unbalanced  times.  I  guess  it's  women  at  the 
bottom  of  this.  Women  got  on  to  it  first,  and  the  others 
caught  the  idea  as  they'd  catch  scarlet  fever.  It's  a 
kind  of  scarlet  fever,  this  spy  scare  that's  about.  Mind 
you,  I  admit  the  germs  are  certainly  present  among  us." 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        397 

And  the  lawyer  smiled.  He  thought  he  saw  he  had 
made  a  little  joke  in  that  last  remark. 

Mr.  Twist  was  not  in  the  condition  to  see  jokes,  and 
didn't  smile.  "Do  you  mean  to  say  those  children 
"  he  began. 

"They're  not  regarded  as  children  by  any  one  except 
you." 

"Well,  if  they're  not,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  remembering 
the  grass  by  the  wayside  in  the  lane  and  what  he  had  so 
recently  met  in  it,  "I  guess  I'd  best  be  making  tracks. 
But  I  know  better.  And  so  would  you  if  you'd  seen 
them  on  the  boat.  Why,  twelve  was  putting  their 
age  too  high  on  that  boat." 

"No  doubt.  No  doubt.  Then  all  I  can  say  is 
they've  matured  pretty  considerably  since.  Now  do 
you  really  want  me  to  tell  you  what  is  being  believed?" 

"Of  course.     It's  what  I've  come  for." 

"You  mayn't  find  it  precisely  exhilarating,  Mr, 
Twist." 

"Go  ahead." 

"What  Acapulco  says — and  Los  Angeles,  I'm  told, 
too,  and  probably  by  this  time  the  whole  coast — is  that 
you  threw  over  your  widowed  mother,  of  whom  you're 
the  only  son,  and  came  off  here  with  two  German  girls 
who  got  hold  of  you  on  the  boat — ^now,  Mr.  Twist, 
don't  interrupt — on  the  boat  crossing  from  England, 
that  England  had  turned  them  out  as  undesirable 
aliens — quite  so,  Mr.  Twist,  but  let  me  finish — that 
they're  in  the  pay  of  the  German  Government — no 
doubt,  no  doubt,  Mr.  Twist — and  that  you're  their 
cat's-paw.  It  is  known  that  the  inn  each  afternoon 
has  been  crowded  with  Germans,  among  them  Germans 
already  suspected,  I  can't  say  how  rightly  or  how  wrong- 
ly, of  spying,  and  that  these  people  are  so  familiar  with 


398       CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

the  Miss  von  Twinklers  as  to  warrant  the  belief  in  a 
complete  secret  understanding." 

For  a  moment  Mr.  Twist  continued  both  his  silence 
and  his  stare.  Then  he  took  off  his  spectacles  and 
wiped  them.  His  hand  shook.  The  lawyer  was 
startled.    Was  there  going  to  be  emotion?    One  never 

knew  with  that  sort  of  lips.     "You're  not "  he 

began. 

Then  he  saw  that  Mr.  Twist  was  trying  not  to  laugh. 

*'  I'm  glad  you  take  it  that  way,"  he  said,  reheved  but 
surprised. 

"It's  so  darned  funny,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  endeavour- 
ing to  compose  his  features.  "To  anybody  who  knows 
those  twins  it's  so  darned  funny.  Cat's-paw.  Yes — 
I   rather   feel   that   myself.     Cat's-paw.    That   does 

seem  a  bit  of  a  bull's  eye "    And  for  a  second  or 

two  his  features  flatly  refused  to  compose. 

The  lawyer  watched  him.  "Yes,"  he  said.  "Yes. 
But  the  effect  of  these  beliefs  may  be  awkward." 

"Oh,  damned,"  agreed  Mr.  Twist,  going  solemn 
again. 

And  there  came  over  him  in  a  flood  the  clear  percep- 
tion of  what  it  would  mean, — ^the  sheer  disaster  of  it, 
the  horrible  situation  those  helpless  Annas  would  be  in. 
What  a  limitless  fool  he  must  have  been  in  his  conduct 
of  the  whole  thing.  His  absorption  in  the  material 
side  of  it  had  done  the  trick.  He  hadn't  been  clever 
enough,  not  imaginative  enough,  nor,  failing  that, 
worldly  enough  to  work  the  other  side  properly.  When 
he  found  there  was  no  Dellogg  he  ought  to  have  insisted 
on  seeing  Mrs.  Dellogg,  intrusion  or  no  intrusion,  and 
handing  over  the  twins;  and  then  gone  away  and  left 
them.  A  woman  was  what  was  wanted.  Fool  that 
he  was  to  suppose  that  he,  a  man,  an  unmarried  man, 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        399 

could  get  them  into  anything  but  a  scrape.  But  he 
was  so  fond  of  them.  He  just  couldn't  leave  them. 
And  now  here  they  all  were,  in  this  ridiculous  and  ter- 
rible situation. 

''There  are  two  things  you  can  do,"  said  the  lawyer. 

"Two.?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  looking  at  him  with  anxious 
eyes.  "For  the  life  of  me  I  can't  see  even  one.  Except 
running  amoke  in  slander  actions " 

"Tut,  tut,"  said  the  lawyer,  waving  that  aside. 
"No.  There  are  two  courses  to  pursue.  And  they're 
not  alternative,  but  simultaneous.  You  shut  down  the 
inn — at  once,  to-morrow — that's  Saturday.  Close  on 
Saturday,  and  give  notice  you  don't  re-open— now  pray 
let  me  finish— close  the  inn  as  an  inn,  and  use  it  simply 
as  a  private  residence.  Then,  as  quick  as  may  be, 
marry  those  girls." 

"Marry  what  girls.?" 

"The  Miss  von  Twinklers." 

Mr.  Twist  stared  at  him.  "Marry  them.?"  he  said 
helplessly.     "Marry  them  who  to?" 

"You  for  one." 

Mr.  Twist  stared  at  him  in  silence.  Then  he  said, 
"You've  said  that  to  me  before." 

"  Yep.  And  I'll  say  it  again.  I'll  go  on  saying  it  till 
you've  done  it." 

"  'Well,  if  that's  all  you've  got  to  offer  as  a  suggestion 
for  a  way  out " 

But  Mr.  Twist  wasn't  angry  this  time;  he  was  too 
much  battered  by  events;  he  hadn't  the  spirits  to  be 
angry. 

"  You've — got  to — marry — one — of — those — girls," 
said  the  lawyer,  at  each  word  smiting  the  table  with  his 
open  palm.  "Turn  her  into  an  American.  Get  her 
out  of  this  being  a  German  business.     And  be  able  at 


400        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS^ 

the  same  time  to  protect  the  one  who'll  be  your  sister- 
in-law.  Why,  even  if  you  didn't  want  to,  which  is 
sheer  nonsense,  for  of  course  any  man  would  want  to — 
I  know  what  I'm  talking  about  because  I've  seen  them 
— it's  your  plain  duty,  having  got  them  into  this  mess." 

"But — marry  which?"  asked  Mr.  Twist,  with 
increased  helplessness  and  yet  a  manifest  profound 
anxiety  for  further  advice. 

For  the  first  time  the  lawyer  showed  impatience. 
*'0h — either  or  both,"  he  said.  "For  God's  sake 
don't  be  such  a " 

He  pulled  up  short. 

"I  didn't  quite  mean  that,"  he  resumed,  again  calm. 
"The  end  of  that  sentence  was,  as  no  doubt  you  guess, 
fool.  I  withdraw  it,  and  will  substitute  something 
milder.     Have  you  any  objection  to  ninny .f^" 

No,  Mr.  Twist  didn't  mind  ninny,  or  any  other  word 
the  lawyer  might  choose,  he  was  in  such  a  condition  of 
mental  groping  about.  He  took  out  his  handkerchief 
and  wiped  away  the  beads  on  his  forehead  and  round  his 
mouth. 

"I'm  thirty-five,"  he  said,  looking  terribly  worried. 

Propose  to  an  Anna.'^  The  lawyer  may  have  seen 
them,  but  he  hadn't  heard  them;  and  the  probable 
nature  of  their  comments  if  Mr.  Twist  proposed  to  them 
— to  one,  he  meant  of  course,  but  both  would  com- 
ment, the  one  he  proposed  to  and  the  one  he  didn't — 
caused  his  imagination  to  reel.  He  hadn't  much 
imagination;  he  knew  that  now,  after  his  conduct  of 
this  whole  affair,  but  all  there  was  of  it  reeled. 

"I'm  thirty-five,"  he  said  helplessly. 

"Pooh,"  said  the  lawyer,  indicating  the  negligible- 
ness  of  this  by  a  movement  of  his  shoulder. 

"They're  seventeen,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        401 

.  "Pooh,"  said  the  lawyer  again,  again  indicating 
negligibleness.     "My  wife  was " 

**I  know.  You  told  me  that  last  time.  Oh,  I 
know  all  that/'  said  Mr.  Twist  with  sudden  passion. 
"But  these  are  children.  I  tell  you  they're  chil' 
dren " 

*'Pooh,"  said  the  lawyer  a  third  time,  a  third  time 
indicating  negligibleness. 

Then  he  got  up  and  held  out  his  hand.  "Well,  I've 
told  you,"  he  said.  "You  wanted  to  know,  and  I've 
told  you.  And  I'll  tell  you  one  thing  more,  Mr.  Twist. 
Whichever  of  those  girls  takes  you,  you'll  have  the 
sweetest,  prettiest  wife  of  any  man  in  the  world  except 
one,  and  that's  the  man  who  has  the  luck  to  get  the 
other  one.  Why,  sweetest  and  prettiest  are  poor 
words.     She'll  be  the  most  delectable,  the  most " 

Mr.  Twist  rose  from  his  chair  in  such  haste  that  he 
pushed  the  table  crooked.     His  ears  flamed. 

"See  here,"  he  said  very  loud.  "I  won't  have  you 
talk  familiarly  like  that  about  my  wife." 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

WIFE.  The  word  had  a  remarkable  effect  on 
him.  It  churned  him  all  up.  His  thoughts 
were  a  chaotic  jumble,  and  his  driving  on  the 
way  home  matched  them.  He  had  at  least  three  narrow 
shaves  at  cross  streets  before  he  got  out  of  the  town, 
and  for  an  entire  mile  afterwards  he  was  on  the  wrong 
side  of  the  road.  During  this  period,  deep  as  he  was 
in  confused  thought,  he  couldn't  but  vaguely  notice 
the  anger  on  the  faces  of  the  other  drivers  and  the 
variety  and  fury  of  their  gesticulations,  and  it  roused  a 
dim  wonder  in  him. 

Wife.  How  arid  existence  had  been  for  him  up  to 
then  in  regard  to  the  affections,  how  knobbly  the 
sort  of  kisses  he  had  received  in  Clark.  They  weren't 
kisses;  they  were  disapproving  pecks.  Always  dis- 
approving.  Always  as  if  he  hadn't  done  enough,  or 
been  enough,  or  was  suspected  of  not  going  to  do  or  be 
enough. 

His  wife.  Mr.  Twist  dreadfully  longed  to  kisa 
somebody, — somebody  kind  and  soft,  who  would  let 
herself  be  adored.  She  needn't  even  love  him, — he 
knew  he  wasn't  the  sort  of  man  to  set  passion  alight; 
she  need  only  be  kind,  and  a  little  fond  of  him,  and  let 
him  love  her,  and  be  his  very  own. 

His  own  little  wife.  How  sweet.  How  almost 
painfully  sweet.     Yes.     But  the  Annas.     .     .     . 

When  he  thought  of  the  Annas,  Mr.  Twist  went 
damp.     He  might  propose — indeed,  everything  pointed 

402 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMEUS        403 

to  his  simply  having  got  to — but  wouldn't  they  very 
quickly  dispose?  And  then  what?  That  lawyer 
seemed  to  think  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  marry  them 
right  away;  not  them,  of  course, — one;  but  they  were 
so  very  plural  in  his  mind.  Funny  man,  thought  Mr. 
Twist;  funny  man, — ^yet  otherwise  so  sagacious.  It  is 
true  he  need  only  propose  to  one  of  them,  for  which  he 
thanked  God,  but  he  could  imagine  what  that  one,  and 
what  the  other  one  too,  who  would  be  sure  to  be  some- 
where quite  near  would  .  .  .  no,  he  couldn't 
imagine;  he  preferred  not  to  imagine. 

Mr.  Twist's  dampness  increased,  and  a  passing  car 
got  his  mud-guard.  It  was  a  big  car  which  crackled 
with  language  as  it  whizzed  on  its  way,  and  Mr.  Twist, 
slewed  by  the  impact  half  across  the  road,  then  per- 
ceived on  which  side  he  had  been  driving. 

The  lane  up  to  the  inn  was  in  its  middle-day  empti- 
ness and  somnolence.  Where  Anna-Felicitas  and 
Elliott  had  been  sitting  cool  and  shaded  when  he  passed 
before,  there  was  only  the  pressed-down  grass  and 
crushed  flowers  in  a  glare  of  sun.  She  had  gone  home 
long  ago  of  course.  She  said  she  was  going  to  be  very 
busy.  Secretly  he  wished  she  hadn't  gone  home,  and 
that  little  Christopher  too  might  for  a  bit  be  some- 
where else,  so  that  when  he  arrived  he  wouldn't  im- 
mediately have  to  face  everybody  at  once.  He  wanted 
to  think;  he  wanted  to  have  time  to  think;  time  before 
four  o'clock  came,  and  with  four  o'clock,  if  he  hadn't 
come  to  any  conclusion  about  shutting  up  the  inn — and 
how  could  he  if  nobody  gave  him  time  to  think i^ — those 
accursed,  swarming  Germans.  It  was  they  who  had 
done  all  this.  Mr.  Twist  blazed  into  sudden  fury. 
They  and  their  blasted  war.     .     .     . 

At  the  gate  stood  Anna-Rose.    Her  face  looked  quite 


404       CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

pale  in  tlie  green  shade  of  the  tunnelled-out  syringa 
bushes.  She*"  was  peering  out  down  the  lane  watching 
him  approach.  This  was  awful,  thought  Mr.  Twist. 
At  the  very  gate  one  of  them.  Confronted  at  once. 
No  time,  not  a  minute's  time  given  him  to  think. 

"Oh,"  cried  out  Anna-Rose  the  instant  he  pulled 
up,  for  she  had  waved  to  him  to  stop  when  he  tried  to 
drive  straight  on  round  to  the  stable,  "she  isn't  with 

you?" 

"Who  isn't?"  asked  Mr.  Twist. 

Anna-Rose  became  paler  than  ever.  "She  has  been 
kidnapped,"  she  said. 

i" How's  that?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  staring  at  her  from 
the  car. 

"Kidnapped,"  repeated  Anna-Rose,  with  wide-open 
horror-stricken  eyes;  for  from  her  nursery  she  carried 
with  her  at  the  bottom  of  her  mind,  half-forgotten  but 
ready  to  fly  up  to  the  top  at  any  moment  of  panic,  an 
impression  that  the  chief  activities  and  recreations  of  all 
those  Americans  who  weren't  really  good  were  two: 
they  lynched,  and  they  kidnapped.  They  lynched 
you  if  they  didn't  like  you  enough,  and  if  they  liked 
you  too  much  they  kidnapped  you.  Anna-Felicitas, 
exquisite  and  unsuspecting,  had  been  kidnapped. 
Some  American's  concupiscent  eye  had  alighted  on  her, 
observed  her  beauty,  and  marked  her  down.  No 
other  explanation  was  possible  of  a  whole  morning's 
absence  from  duties  of  one  so  conscientious  and  pain- 
staking as  Anna-Felicitas.  She  never  shirked;  that  is, 
she  never  had  been  base  enough  to  shirk  alone.  If 
there  was  any  shirking  to  be  done  they  had  always 
done  it  together.  As  the  hours  passed  and  she  didn't 
appear,  Anna-Rose  had  tried  to  persuade  herself 
that  she  must  have  motored  into  Acapulco  with  Mr. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        405 

Twist,  strange  and  unnatural  and  reprehensible  and 
ignoble  as  such  arch  shirking  would  have  been;  and 
now  that  the  car  had  come  back  empty  except  for  Mr. 
Twist  she  was  convinced  the  worst  had  happened — • 
her  beautiful,  her  precious  Columbus  had  been  kid- 
napped. 

"Kidnapped,"  she  said  again,  wringing  her  hands. 

Mr.  Twist  was  horror-struck  too,  for  he  thought  she 
was  announcing  the  kidnapping  of  Mrs.  Bilton.  Some- 
how he  didn't  think  of  Anna-Felicitas;  he  had  seen  her 
too  recently.  But  that  Mrs.  Bilton  should  be  kid- 
napped seemed  to  him  to  touch  the  lowest  depths  of 
American  criminal  enterprise  and  depravity.  At  the 
same  time  though  he  recoiled  before  this  fresh  blow  a 
thought  did  fan  through  his  mind  with  a  wonderful 
effect  of  coolness  and  silence, — "Then  they'll  gag  her," 
he  said. 

"What?"  cried  Anna-Rose,  as  though  a  whip  had 
lashed  her.  "Gag  her.?"  And  pulling  open  the  gate 
and  running  out  to  him  as  one  possessed  she  cried 
again,  "Gag  Columbus?" 

"Oh  that's  it,  is  it,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  with  relief  but 
also  with  disappointment,  "Well,  if  it's  that  way  I  can 
tell  you " 

He  stopped;  there  was  no  need  to  tell  her;  for  round 
the  bend  of  the  lane,  walking  bare-headed  in  the 
chequered  light  and  shade  as  leisurely  as  if  such  things  as 
hours  of  absence  didn't  exist,  or  a  distracted  household, 
or  an  anguished  Christopher,  with  indeed,  a  complete, 
an  extraordinary  serenity,  advanced  Anna-Felicitas. 

Always  placid,  her  placidity  at  this  moment  had  a 
shining  quality.  Still  smug,  she  was  now  of  a  glorified 
smugness.  If  one  could  imagine  a  lily  turned  into  a 
god,  or  a  young  god  turned  into  a  lily  and  walking  dow  n 


40G        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUIVIBUS 

the  middle  of  a  sun-flecked  Calif ornian  lane,  it  wouldn't 
be  far  out,  thought  Mr.  Twist,  as  an  image  of  the  advanc- 
ing Twinkler.  The  god  would  be  so  young  that  he  was 
still  a  boy,  and  he  wouldn't  be  worrying  much  about  any- 
thing in  the  past  or  in  the'future,  and  he'd  just  be  com- 
ing along  like  that  with  the  corners  of  his  mouth  a  little 
turned  up,  and  his  fair  hair  a  little  ruffled,  and  his 
charming  young  face  full  of  a  sober  and  abstracted 
radiance. 

"Not  much  kidnappmg  there,  1  guess,"  said  Mr, 
Twist  with  a  jerk  of  his  thumb.  "And  you  take  it 
from  me,  Anna  I.,"  he  added  quickly,  leaning  over 
towards  her,  determined  to  get  off  to  the  garage  before 
he  found  himself  faced  by  both  twins  together,  "that 
when  next  your  imagination  gets  the  jumps  the  best 
thing  you  can  do  is  to  hold  on  to  it  hard  till  it  settles 
down  again,  instead  of  wasting  your  time  and  ruining 
your  constitution  going  pale." 

And  he  started  the  Ford  with  a  boimd,  and  got  away 
round  the  comer  into  the  yard. 

Here,  in  the  yard,  was  peace;  at  least  for  the  moment. 
The  only  living  thing  in  it  was  a  cat  the  twins  had 
acquired,  through  the  services  of  one  of  the  experts, 
as  an  indispensable  object  in  a  really  homey  home. 
The  first  thing  this  cat  had  done  had  been  to  eat  the 
canary,  which  gave  the  twins  much  unacknowledged 
relief.  It  was,  they  thought  secretly,  quite  a  good 
plan  to  have  one's  pets  inside  each  other, — ^it  kept  them 
so  quiet.  She  now  sat  unmoved  in  the  middle  of  the 
yard,  carefully  cleaning  her  whiskers  while  Mr.  Twist 
did  some  difficult  fancy  driving  in  order  to  get  into  the 
stable  without  inconveniencing  her. 

Admirable  picture  of  peace,  thought  Mr.  Twist  with 
a  sigh  of  envy. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       407 

He  might  have  got  out  and  picked  her  up,  but  he 
was  glad  to  manoeuvre  about,  reversing  and  making 
intricate  figures  in  the  dust,  because  it  kept  him  longer 
away  from  the  luncheon-table.  The  cat  took  no  notice 
of  him,  but  continued  to  deal  with  her  whiskers  even 
when  his  front  wheel  was  within  two  inches  of  her  tail, 
for  though  she  hadn't  been  long  at  The  Open  Arms  she 
had  already  sized  up  Mr.  Twist  and  was  aware  that 
he  wouldn't  hurt  a  fly. 

Thanks  to  her  he  had  a  lot  of  troublegetting  the  Ford 
into  the  stable,  all  of  which  he  liked  because  of  that 
luncheon-table;  and  having  got  it  in  he  still  lingered 
fiddling  about  with  it,  examining  its  engine  and  wiping 
its  bonnet;  and  then  when  he  couldn't  do  that  any 
longer  he  went  out  and  lingered  in  the  yard,  looking 
down  at  the  cat  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets.  "I 
must  think,"  he  kept  on  saying  to  himself. 

"Lunchee,"  said  Li  Koo,  putting  his  head  out  of 
the  kitchen  window. 

"All  right,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

He  stooped  down  as  though  to  examine  the  cat's 
ear.  The  cat,  who  didn't  like  her  ears  touched  but 
was  prepared  to  humour  him,  got  out  of  it  by  lying 
down  on  her  back  and  showing  him  her  beautiful  white 
stomach.  She  was  a  black  cat,  with  a  particularly 
beautiful  white  stomach,  and  she  had  discovered  that 
nobody  could  see  it  without  wanting  to  stroke  it. 
Whenever  she  found  herself  in  a  situation  that  threat- 
ened to  become  disagreeable  she  just  lay  down  and 
showed  her  stomach.  Human  beings  in  similar  pre- 
dicaments can  only  show  their  tact. 

"Nice  pussy — nice,  nice  pussy,"  said  Mr.  Twist 
aloud,  stroking  this  irresistible  object  slowly,  and  for- 
getting her  ear  as  she  had  intended  he  should. 


408        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"Lunchee  get  cold,"  said  Li  Koo,  again  putting  his 
head  out  of  the  kitchen  window.  "Mis'  Bilton  say. 
Come  in." 

"All  right,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

He  straightened  himself  and  looked  round  the  yard. 
A  rake  that  should  have  been  propped  up  against  the 
tool-shed  with  some  other  gardening  tools  had  fallen 
down.  He  crossed  over  and  picked  it  up  and  stood  it 
up  carefully  again. 

Li  Koo  watched  him  impassively  from  the  window. 

"Mis'  Bilton  come  out,"  he  said;  and  there  she  was 
in  the  yard  door. 

"Mr.  Twist,"  she  called  shrilly,  "if  you  don't  come 
in  right  away  and  have  your  food  before  it  gets  all 
mushed  up  with  cold  I  guess  you'll  be  sorry." 

"All  right — coming,"  he  called  back  very  loud  and 
cheerfully,  striding  towards  her  as  one  strides  who 
knows  there  is  nothing  for  it  now  but  courage.  "All 
right,  Mrs.  Bilton — sorry  if  I've  kept  you  waiting. 
You  shouldn't  have  bothered  about  me " 

And  saying  things  like  this  in  a  loud  voice,  for  to 
hear  himself  being  loud  made  him  feel  more  supported, 
he  strode  into  the  house,  through  the  house,  and  out 
on  to  the  verandah. 

They  always  lunched  on  the  verandah.  The  golden 
coloured  awning  was  down,  and  the  place  was  full  of 
a  golden  shade.  Beyond  it  blazed  the  garden.  Be- 
neath it  was  the  flower-adorned  table  set  as  usual 
ready  for  four,  and  he  went  out  to  it,  strung  up  to  find- 
ing the  Annas  at  the  table,  Anna-Felicitas  in  her  usual 
seat  with  her  back  to  the  garden,  her  little  fair  head  out- 
lined against  the  glowing  light  as  he  had  seen  it  every 
day  since  they  had  lived  in  the  inn,  Anna-Rose  oppo- 
site, probably  volubly  and  passionately  addressing  her. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        409 

And  there  was  no  one. 

**Why "  he  said,  stopping  short. 

"Yes.  It's  real  silly  of  them  not  to  come  and  eat 
before  everything  is  spoilt,"  said  Mrs.  Bilton  bustling 
up,  who  had  stayed  behind  to  give  an  order  to  Li  Koo. 
And  she  went  to  the  edge  of  the  verandah  and  shaded 
her  eyes  and  called,  "Gurls!  Gurls!  I  guess  you  caa 
do  all  that  talking  better  after  lunch." 

He  then  saw  that  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  garden, 
in  the  most  private  place  as  regards  being  overheard, 
partly  concealed  by  some  arum  lilies  that  grew  im- 
mensely there  like  splendid  weeds,  stood  the  twins 
facing  each  other. 

Better    leave    them    alone,"    he    said    quickly. 

They'll  come  when  they're  ready.  There's  nothing 
like  getting  through  with  one's  talking  right  away, 
Mrs.  Bilton.  Besides,"  he  went  on  still  more  quickly 
for  she  plainly  didn't  agree  with  him  and  was  preparing 
to  sally  out  into  the  sun  and  fetch  them  in,  "you  and 

I  don't  often  get  a  chance  of  a  quiet  chat  together '* 

And  this,  combined  with  the  resolute  way  he  was  hold- 
ing her  chair  ready  for  her,  brought  Mrs.  Bilton  back 
under  the  awning  again.  ,_ 

She  was  flattered.  Mr.  Twist  had  not  yet  spoken 
to  her  in  quite  that  tone.  He  had  always  been  the 
gentleman,  but  never  yet  the  eager  gentleman.  Now 
he  was  unmistakably  both. 

She  came  back  and  sat  down,  and  so  with  a  sigh  of 
thankfulness  immediately  did  he,  for  here  was  an  un- 
expected respite, — while  Mrs.  Bilton  talked  he  could 
think.  Fortunately  she  never  noticed  if  one  wasn't 
listening.  For  the  first  time  since  he  had  known  her 
he  gave  himself  up  willingly  to  the  great  broad  stream 
that  at  once  started  flowing  over  him,  on  this  occasion 


410        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

with  something  of  the  comfort  of  warm  water,  and  he 
was  very  glad  indeed  that  anyhow  that  day  she  wasn't 
gagged. 

Wliile  he  ate,  he  kept  on  furtively  looking  down  the 
garden  at  the  two  figures  facing  each  other  by  the  arum 
lilies.  Whenever  Mrs.  Bilton  remembered  them  and 
wanted  to  call  them  in,  as  she  did  at  the  different  stages 
of  the  meal, — ^at  the  salad,  at  the  pudding — he  stopped 
her.  She  became  more  and  more  pleased  by  his  evi- 
dent determination  to  lunch  alone  with  her,  for  after 
all  one  remains  female  to  the  end,  and  her  conversa- 
tion took  on  a  gradual  tinge  of  Mr.  Bilton's  views  about 
second  marriages.  They  had  been  liberal  views;  for 
Mr.  Bilton,  she  said,  had  had  no  post-mortem  pettiness 
about  him,  but  they  were  lost  on  Mr.  Twist,  whose 
thoughts  were  so  painfully  preoccupied  by  first  mar- 
riage. 

The  conclusions  he  came  to  during  that  trying  meal 
w^hile  Mrs.  Bilton  talked,  were  that  he  would  propose 
first  to  Anna- Rose,  she  being  the  eldest  and  such  a 
course  being  accordingly  natural,  and,  if  she  refused, 
proceed  at  once  to  propose  to  Aima-FeKcitas.  But 
before  proceeding  to  Anna-Felicitas,  a  course  he  re- 
garded with  peculiar  misgiving,  he  would  very  earnestly 
explain  to  Anna-Rose  the  seriousness  of  the  situation 
and  the  necessity,  the  urgency,  the  sanity  of  her  marry- 
ing him.  These  proposals  would  be  kept  on  the  cool 
level  of  strict  business.  Every  trace  of  the  affection 
with  which  he  was  so  overflowing  would  be  sternly 
excluded.  For  instance,  he  wasn't  going  to  let  him 
self  remember  the  feel  of  Christopher's  little  head  the 
afternoon  before  when  he  patted  it  to  comfort  hen 
Such  remembrances  would  be  bound  to  bring  a  warmth 
into  his  remarks  which  wouldn't  be  fair.     The  situa- 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        411 

tion  demanded  the  most  scrupulous  fairness  and 
delicacy  in  its  treatment,  the  most  careful  avoidance 
of  taking  any  advantage  of  it.  But  how  difficult, 
thought  Mr.  Twist,  his  hand  shaking  as  he  poured  him- 
self out  a  glass  of  iced  water,  how  difficult  when  he 
loved  the  Annas  so  inconveniently  much. 

Mrs.  Bilton  observed  the  shaking  of  his  hand,  and 
felt  more  female  than  ever. 

Still,  there  it  was,  this  situation  forced  upon  them  all 
by  the  war.  Nobody  could  help  it,  and  it  had  to  be 
faced  with  calmness,  steadfastness  and  tact.  Calmness, 
steadfastness  and  tact,  repeated  Mr.  Twist,  raising 
the  water  to  his  mouth  and  spilling  some  of  it. 

Mrs.  Bilton  observed  this  too,  and  felt  still  more 
female. 

Marriage  was  the  quickest,  and  really  the  only,  way 
out  of  it.  He  saw  that  now.  The  lawyer  had  been 
quite  right.  And  marriage,  he  would  explain  to  the 
Annas,  would  be  a  mere  formal  ceremony  which  after 
the  war  they — ^he  meant,  of  course,  she — could  easily 
in  that  land  of  facile  and  honourable  divorce  get  rid 
of.  Meanwhile,  he  would  point  out,  they — she,  of 
course;  bother  these  twins — would  be  safely  American, 
and  he  would  undertake  never  to  intrude  love  on  them — 
her — unless  by  some  wonderful  chance,  it  was  wanted. 
Some  wonderful  chance  .  .  .  Mr.  Twist's  spec- 
tacles suddenly  went  dim,  and  he  gulped  down  more 
water. 

Yes.  That  was  the  line  to  take:  the  austere  line  of 
self-mortification  for  the  Twinkler  good.  One  Twink- 
ler  would  be  his  wife — again  at  the  dear  word  he  had 
to  gulp  down  water — and  one  his  sister-in-law.  They 
would  just  have  to  agree  to  this  plan.  The  position 
was  too  serious  for  shilly-shallying.     Yes.     That  was 


412        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

the  line  to  take;  and  by  the  time  he  had  got  to  the 
coffee  it  was  perfectly  clear  and  plain  to  him. 

But  he  felt  dreadfully  damp.  He  longed  for  a 
liqueur,  for  anything  that  would  support  him.     .     .     . 

"Is  there  any  brandy  in  the  house?"  he  suddenly 
flung  across  the  web  of  Mrs.  Bilton's  words. 

"Brandy,  Mr.  Twist.^^"  she  repeated,  at  this  feeling 
altogether  female,  for  what  an  unusual  thing  for  him 
to  ask  for, — "You're  not  sick.^^" 

"With  my  coffee,"  murmured  Mr.  Twist,  his  mouth 
very  slack,  his  head  drooping.     "It's  nice.     ..." 

"I'll  go  and  see,"  said  Mrs.  Bilton,  getting  up  briskly 
and  going  away  rattling  a  bunch  of  keys. 

At  once  he  looked  down  the  garden .  Anna-Felicitas  wa  s 
in  the  act  of  puttmg  her  arm  round  Anna-Rose's  shoul- 
der, and  Anna-Rose  was  passionately  disengaging  herself. 
Yes.  There  was  trouble  there.    He  knew  there  would  be. 

He  gulped  down  more  water. 

Anna-Felicitas  couldn't  expect  to  go  off  like  that  for 
a  whole  morning  and  give  Anna-Rose  a  horrible  fright 
without  hearing  about  it.  Besides,  the  expression  on 
her  face  wanted  explaining, — a  lot  of  explaining.  Mr. 
Twist  didn't  like  to  think  so,  but  Anna-Felicitas 's 
recent  conduct  seemed  to  him  almost  artful.  It 
seemed  to  him  older  than  her  years.  It  seemed  to 
justify  the  lawyer's  scepticism  when  he  described  the 
twins  to  him  as  children.     That  young  man  Elliott 

But  here  Mr.  Twist  started  and  lost  his  thread  of 
thought,  for  looking  once  more  down  the  garden  he 
saw  that  Anna-Felicitas  was  coming  towards  the 
verandah,  and  that  she  was  alone.  Anna-Rose  had 
vanished.  Why  had  he  bothered  about  brandy,  and 
let  Mrs.  Bilton  go?  He  had  counted,  somehow,  on 
beginning  with  Anna-Rose.     .     .     . 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        41S 

He  seized  a  cigarette  and  lit  it.  He  tried  vainly  to 
keep  his  hand  steady.  Before  the  cigarette  was  fairly 
alight  there  was  Anna-Felicitas,  walking  in  beneath 
the  awning. 

"I'm  glad  you're  alone,"  she  said,  "for  I  want  to 
speak  to  you." 
And  Mr.  Twist  felt  that  his  hour  had  come. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

IY  ADN'T  you  better  have  lunch  first?"  he  asked, 
— I  though  he  knew  from  the  look  on  her  face  that 
JL  she  wouldn't.  It  was  a  very  remarkable  look. 
It  was  as  though  an  angel,  dwelling  in  perfect  bliss, 
had  unaccountably  got  its  feet  wet.  Not  more  troub- 
led than  that;  a  little  troubled,  but  not  more  than  that. 

"No  thank  you,"  she  said  politely,  "But  if  you've 
finished  yours,  do  you  mind  coming  into  the  office.'^ 
Because  otherwise  IVIi-s,  Bilton " 

"She's  fetching  me  some  brandy,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"I  didn't  laiow  you  drank,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
even  at  this  moment  interested,  "But  do  you  mind 
having  it  afterwards.^  Because  otherwise  Mrs. 
Bilton " 

"I  guess  the  idea  was  to  have  it  first,"  said  Mr. 
Twist. 

She  was  however  already  making  for  the  tea-room, 
proceeding  towards  it  without  hurry,  and  with  a  single- 
mindedness  that  would  certainly  get  her  there. 

He  could  only  follovv^. 

In  the  office  she  said,  "Do  you  mind  shutting  the 
door?" 

"Not  at  all,"  said  Mr,  Twist;  but  he  did  mind. 
His  hour  had  come,  and  he  wasn't  lildng  it.  He 
wanted  to  begin  with  Anna-Rose,  He  wanted  to 
get  things  clear  with  her  first  before  dealing  with  this 
one.  There  was  less  of  Anna-Rose,  And  her  dear 
little    head    yesterday    when    he    patted    it,     .     .     . 

414 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        415 

And  she  needed  comforting.  .  .  .  Anna-Rose  cried, 
and  let  herself  be  comforted.  .  .  .  And  it  was  so 
sweet  to  Mr.  Twist  to  comfort.     .     .     . 

"Christopher "  began  Anna-Felicitas,  directly  he 

had  shut  the  door. 

"I  know.  She's  mad  with  you.  What  can  you 
expect,  Anna  II.  .f*"  he  interrupted  in  a  very  matter- 
of-fact  voice,  leaning  against  a  bookcase.  Even  a 
bookcase  was  better  than  nothing  to  lean  against. 

"Christopher  is  being  unreasonable,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas,  her  voice  softer  and  gentler  than  he  had  yet 
heard  it. 

Then  she  stopped,  and  considered  him  a  moment 
with  much  of  the  look  of  one  who  on  a  rather  cold  day 
considers  the  sea  before  diving  in — with,  that  is,  a 
slight  but  temporary  reluctance  to  proceed. 

"Won't  you  sit  down.?"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Perhaps  I'd  better,"  she  said,  disposing  herself 
in  the  big  chair.  "It's  very  strange,  but  my  legs  feel 
funny.  You  wouldn't  think  being  in  love  would  make 
one  w^nt  to  sit  down." 

"I  beg  your  pardon.?"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"I  have  fallen  in  love,"  said  Anna-Felicitas,  looking 
up  at  him  with  a  kind  of  pensive  radiance.  "I  did 
it  this  morning." 

Mr.  Twist  stared  at  her.  "I  beg  your — what  did 
you  say.?"  he  asked. 

She  said,  still  with  that  air  as  she  regarded  him  of 
pensive  radiance,  of  not  seeing  him  but  something 
beyond  him  that  was  very  beautiful  to  her  and  satis- 
factory, "I've  fallen  in  love,  and  I  can't  tell  you  how 
pleased  I  am  because  I've  always  been  afraid  I  was 
going  to  find  it  a  difficult  thing  to  do.  But  it  wasn't* 
Quite  the  contrary." 


416        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Then,  as  he  only  sta,rejd  at  her,  she  said,  "He's  com- 
ing round  this  afternoon  on  the  new  footing,  and  I 
wanted  to  prepare  your  and  Christopher's  minds  in 
good  time  so  that  you  shouldn't  be  surprised." 

And  having  said  this  she  lapsed  into  what  was  ap- 
parently, judging  from  her  expression,  a  silent  contem- 
plation of  her  bliss. 

**But  you're  too  young,"  burst  out  Mr.  Twist. 

"Too  young.^"  repeated  Anna-Felicitas,  coming 
out  of  her  contemplation  for  a  moment  to  smile  at 
him.     "We  don't  think  so." 

Well.     This  beat  everything. 

Mr.  Twist  could  only  stare  down  at  her. 

Conflicting  emotions  raged  in  him.  He  couldn't 
tell  for  a  moment  what  they  were,  they  were  so  violent 
and  so  varied.  How  dared  Elliott.  How  dared  a 
person  they  had  none  of  them  heard  of  that  time  yes- 
terday come  making  love  to  a  girl  he  had  never  seen 
before.  And  in  such  a  hurry.  So  suddenly.  So 
instantly.  Here  had  he  himself  been  with  the  twins 
constantly  for  weeks,  and  wouldn't  have  dreamed  of 
making  love  to  them.  They  had  been  sacred  to  him. 
And  it  wasn't  as  if  he  hadn't  wanted  to  hug  them  often 
and  often,  but  he  had  restrained  himself  as  a  gentle- 
man should  from  the  highest  motives  of  delicacy, 
and  consideration,  and  respect,  and  propriety,  besides 
a  great  doubt  as  to  whether  they  wouldn't  very  ener- 
getically mind.  And  then  comes  along  this  blundering 
Britisher,  and  straight  away  tumbles  right  in  where 
IVIr.  Twist  had  feared  to  tread,  and  within  twenty-four 
hours  had  persuaded  Anna-Felicitas  to  think  she  was 
in  love.  New  footing  indeed.  There  hadn't  been  an 
old  footing  yet.  And  who  was  this  Elliott?  And  how 
was  Mr.  Twist  going  to  be  able  to  find  out  if  he  were 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        417 

a  proper  person  to  be  allowed  to  pay  his  addresses  to 
one  so  precious  as  a  Twinkler  twin? 

Anger,  jealousy,  anxiety,  sense  of  responsibility  and 
mortification,  all  tumbled  about  furiously  together 
inside  IVIr.  Twist  as  he  leaned  against  the  bookcase 
and  gazed  down  at  Anna-Felicitas,  who  for  her  part 
was  gazing  beatifically  into  space;  but  through  the 
anger,  and  the  jealousy,  and  the  anxiety,  and  the  sense 
of  responsibility  and  mortification  one  great  thought 
was  struggling,  and  it  finally  pushed  every  other  aside 
and  got  out  to  the  top  of  the  welter:  here,  in  the  chair 
before  him,  he  beheld  his  sister-in-law.  So  much  at 
least  was  cleared  up. 

He  crossed  to  the  bureau  and  dragged  his  office- 
stool  over  next  to  her  and  sat  down.  "So  that's  it, 
is  it?"  he  said,  trying  to  speak  very  calmly,  but  his 
face  pulled  all  sorts  of  ways,  as  it  had  so  often  been 
since  the  arrival  in  his  life  of  the  twins. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  coming  out  of  her  contemplation. 
"It's  love  at  last." 

"I  don't  know  about  at  last.  Whichever  way  you 
look  at  it,  Anna  II.,  that  don't  seem  to  hit  it  off  as  a 
word.     What  I  meant  was,  it's  Elliott." 

"Yes,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Which  is  the  same 
thing.  I  believe,"  she  added,  "I  now  have  to  allude 
to  him  as  John." 

Mr.  Twist  made  another  effort  to  speak  calmly. 
**You  don't,"  he  said,  "think  it  at  all  unusual  or  un- 
desirable that  you  should  be  calling  a  man  John  to- 
day of  whom  you'd  never  heard  yesterday." 

"I  think  it's  wonderful,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  beam- 
ing. 

"It  doesn't  strike  you  in  any  way  as  imprudent  to  be 
so  hasty.     It  doesn't  strike  you  as  foolish." 


418        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "I  can't 
help  thinking  I've  been  very  clever.  I  shouldn't 
have  thought  it  of  myself.  You  see,  I'm  not  nat- 
iirally  quick."  And  she  beamed  with  what  she  evi- 
dently regarded  as  a  pardonable  pride. 

"It  doesn't  strike  you  as  even  a  little — well,  a  little 
improper." 

"On  the  contrary,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "Aunt 
Alice  told  us  that  the  one  man  one  could  never  be 
improper  about,  even  if  one  tried,  was  one's  husband." 

"Husband.f^"  Mr.  Twist  winced.  He  loved,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  word  wife,  but  then  that  was  different. 

"It's  not  time  yet  to  talk  of  husbands,"  he  said,  full 
of  a  flaming  unreasonableness  and  jealousy  and  the  sore 
feeling  that  he  who  had  been  toiling  so  long  and  so 
devotedly  in  the  heat  of  the  Twinkler  sun  had  had  a 
most  unfair  march  stolen  on  him  by  this  eleventh-hour 
stranger. 

He  flamed  v/ith  unreasonableness.  Yet  he  knew  this 
was  the  solution  of  half  his  problem, — and  of  much  the 
worst  half,  for  it  was  after  all  Anna-Felicitas  who  had 
produced  the  uncomfortable  feeling  of  slipperiness,  of 
eels;  Anna-Rose  had  been  quite  good,  sitting  in  a  chair 
crying  and  just  so  sweetly  needing  comfort.  But  now 
that  the  solution  was  presented  to  him  he  was  full  of 
fears.  For  on  what  now  could  he  base  his  proposal  to 
Anna-Rose.^  Elliott  would  be  the  legitimate  protector 
of  both  the  Twinlvlers.  Mr.  Twist,  who  had  been  so 
much  perturbed  by  the  idea  of  having  to  propose  to 
one  or  other  twin,  was  miserably  upset  by  the  realization 
that  now  he  needn't  propose  to  either.  Elliott  had 
cut  the  ground  from  under  his  feet.  He  had  indeed — 
what  was  the  expression  he  used  the  evening  before? 
• — yes,  nipped  in.     There  was  now  no  necessity  for 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        419 

Anna-Rose  to  marry  him,  and  Mr.  Twist  had  an  icy 
and  forlorn  feeling  that  on  no  other  basis  except  ne- 
cessity would  she.  He  was  thirty-five.  It  was  all  very 
well  for  Elliott  to  get  proposing  to  people  of  seventeen ; 
he  couldn't  be  more  than  twenty-five.  And  it  wasn't 
only  age.  Mr.  Twist  hadn't  shaved  before  looking- 
glasses  for  nothing,  and  he  was  very  distinctly  aware 
that  Elliott  was  extremely  attractive. 

"It's  not  time  yet  to  talk  of  husbands,"  he  therefore 
hotly  and  jealously  said. 

On  the  contrary,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  gently, 
it's  not  only  time  but  war-time.  The  war,  I  have 
observed,  is  making  people  be  quick  and  sudden  about 
all  sorts  of  things." 

"You  haven't  observed  it.     That's  Elliott  said  that." 

"He  may  have,"  said  Anna-Felicitas.  "He  said 
so  many  things " 

And  again  she  lapsed  into  contemplation;  into, 
thought  Mr.  Twist  as  he  gazed  jealously  at  her  profile, 
an  ineffable,  ruminating,  reminiscent  smugness. 

"See  here,  Anna  II.,"  he  said,  finding  it  impossibly 
painful  to  wait  while  she  contemplated,  "suppose 
you  don't  at  this  particular  crisis  fall  into  quite  so  many 
ecstatic  meditations.  There  isn't  as  much  time  as  you 
seem  to  think." 

"No — and  there's  Christopher,"  said  Anna-Fehcitas, 
giving  herself  a  shake,  and  with  that  slightly  troubled 
look  coming  into  her  face  again  as  of  having,  in  spite 
of  being  an  angel  in  glory,  somehow  got  her  feet 
wet. 

"Precisely,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  getting  up  and  walking 
about  the  room.  "There's  Christopher.  Now  Chris- 
topher, I  should  say,  would  be  pretty  well  heart-broken 
over  this." 


420        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

"But  that's  so  unreasonable,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
with  gentle  deprecation. 

"You're  all  she  has  got,  and  she'll  be  under  the 
impression — the  remarkably  vivid  impression — that 
she's  losing  you." 

"But  thafs  so  unreasonable.  She  isn't  losing  me. 
It's  sheer  gain.  Without  the  least  effort  or  bother  on 
her  part  she's  acquiring  a  brother-in-law." 

"Oh,  I  know  what  Christopher  feels,"  said  Mr. 
Twist,  going  up  and  down  the  room  quickly.  "I 
know  right  enough,  because  I  feel  it  all  myself." 

"But  that's  so  unreasonable,"  said  Anna-Felicitas 
earnestly.  "Why  should  two  of  you  be  feeling  things 
that  aren't.'^" 

"She  has  always  regarded  herself  as  responsible  for 
you,  and  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if  she  were  terribly 
shocked  at  your  conduct." 

"But  there  has  to  he  conduct,"  said  Anna-Felicitas, 
still  very  gentle,  but  looking  as  though  her  feet  were 
getting  wetter.  "I  don't  see  how  anybody  is  ever  to 
fall  in  love  unless  there's  been  some  conduct  first." 

"Oh,  don't  argue — don't  argue.  You  can't  expect 
Anna-Rose  not  to  mind  your  wanting  to  marry  a 
perfect  stranger,  a  man  she  hasn't  even  seen." 

"But  everybody  you  marry  started  by  being  a 
perfect  stranger  and  somebody  you  hadn't  ever  seen," 
said  Anna-Felicitas. 

"Oh  Lord,  if  only  you  wouldn't  ar^w^.' " exclaimed  Mr. 
Twist.  "And  as  for  your  aunt  in  England,  what's  she 
going  to  say  to  this  twenty -four-hours,  quick-lunch  sort 
of  engagement .^^  She'll  be  terribly  upset.  And  Anna- 
Rose  knows  that,  and  is  I  expect  nigh  worried  crazy." 

"But  what,"  asked  Anna-Felicitas,  "have  aimts 
to  do  with  love?  " 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        421 

Then  she  said  very  earnestly,  her  face  a  little  flushed, 
her  eyes  troubled,  "Christopher  said  all  that  you're 
saying  now,  and  a  lot  more,  down  in  the  garden  before 
I  came  to  you,  and  I  said  what  I've  been  saying  to  you, 
and  a  lot  more,  but  she  wouldn't  listen.  And  when  I 
found  she  wouldn't  listens  I  tried  to  comfort  her,  but 
she  wouldn't  be  comforted.  And  then  I  came  to  you; 
for  besides  wanting  to  tell  you  what  I've  done  I  wanted 
to  ask  you  to  comfort  Christopher." 

Mr.  Twist  paused  a  moment  in  his  walk.  "Yes," 
he  said,  staring  at  the  carpet.  "Yes.  I  can  very  well 
imagine  she  needs  it.  But  I  don't  suppose  anything 
I  would  say " 

"Christopher  is  very  fond  of  you,"  said  Anna- 
Felicitas  gently. 

"Oh  yes.  You're  both  very  fond  of  me,"  said  Mr. 
Twist,  pulling  his  mouth  into  a  crooked  and  unhappy 
smile. 

"We  love  you,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  simply. 

Mr.  Twist  looked  at  her,  and  a  mist  came  over  his 
spectacles.  "You  dear  chidren,"  he  said,  "you  dear, 
dear  children " 

"I  don't  know  about  children '*  began  Anna- 
Felicitas;  but  was  interrupted  by  a  knock  at  the  door. 

"It's  only  the  brandy,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  seeing 
her  face  assume  the  expression  he  had  learned  to  asso- 
ciate with  the  approach  of  Mrs.  Bilton.  "Take  it 
away,  please  Mrs.  Bilton,"  he  called  out,  "and  put  it 
on  the " 

Mrs.  Bilton  however,  didn't  take  anything  away, 
but  opened  the  door  an  inch  instead.  "There's  some-j 
one  wants  to  speak  to  you,  Mr.  Twist,"  she  said  in  a 
loud  whisper,  thrusting  in  a  card.  "He  says  he  just 
must.     I  found  him  on  the  verandah  when  I  took  your 


422        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

brandy  out,  and  as  I'm  not  the  woman  to  leave  a 
stranger  alone  with  good  brandy  I  brought  him  in  with 
me,  and  he's  right  here  back  of  me  in  the  tea-room." 

"It's  John,"  remarked  Anna-Felicitas  placidly. 
"Come  early." 

"I  say "  said  a  voice  behind  Mrs.  Bilton. 

"Yes,"  nodded  Anna-Felicitas,  getting  up  out  of  the 
deep  chair.     "That's  John." 

"I  say — may  I  come  in.^  I've  got  something  im- 
portant  " 

Mr.  Twist  looked  at  Anna-Felicitas.  "Wouldn't 
you  rather .^"  he  began. 

"I  don't  mind  John,"  she  said  softly,  her  face  flooded 
with  a  most  beautiful  light. 

Mr.  Twist  opened  the  door  and  went  out.  "Come 
in,"  he  said.  "Mrs,  Bilton,  may  I  present  Mr.  Elliott 
to  you — Commander  Elliott  of  the  British  'Navy,'' 

"Pleased  to  meet  you,  Commander  Elliott,"  said 
Mrs.  Bilton.  "Mr.  Twist,  your  brandy  is  on  the 
verandah.     Shall  I  bring  it  to  you  in  here.^^" 

"No  thank  you,  Mrs.  Bilton,  I'll  go  out  there 
presently.  Perhaps  you  wouldn't  mind  waiting  for  me 
there — I  don't  suppose  Mr.  Elliott  will  want  to  keep 
me  long.     Come  in,  Mr.  Elliott." 

And  having  disposed  of  Mrs.  Bilton,  who  was  in  a 
particularly  willing  and  obedient  and  female  mood,  he 
motioned  Elliott  into  the  office. 

There  stood  Anna-Felicitas. 

Elliott  stopped  dead. 

"This  isn't  fair,"  he  said,  his  eyes  twinkling  and 
dancing. 

"What  isn't.f^"  inquired  Anna-Felicitas  gently,  beam- 
ing at  him. 

"Your  being  here.     I've  got  to  talk  business.     Look 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       423 

here,  sir,"  he  said,  turning  to  Mr.  Twist,  "could  you 
talk  business  with  her  there?" 

"Not  if  she  argued,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Argued!  I  wouldn't  mind  her  arguing.  It's  just 
her  being  there.  I've  got  to  talk  business,"  he  said, 
turning  to  Anna-Felicitas, — "business  about  marrying 
you.  And  how  can  I  with  you  standing  there  looking 
like — well,  like  that-f^" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  placidly,  not 
moving. 

"But  you'll  interrupt — just  your  being  there  will 
interrupt.  I  shall  see  you  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye, 
and  it'll  be  impossible  not  to — I  mean  I  know  I'll  want 
to — I  mean,  Anna-Felicitas  my  dear,  it  isn't  done. 
I've  got  to  explain  all  sorts  of  things  to  your  guar- 
dian  ^" 

"He  isn't  my  guardian,"  corrected  the  accurate 
Anna-Felicitas  gently.  "He  only  very  nearly  once 
was." 

"  Well,  anyhow  I've  got  to  explain  a  lot  of  things 
that'll  take  some  time,  and  it  isn't  so  much  explain  as 
persuade — ^for  I  expect,"  he  said,  turning  to  Mr,  Twist, 
"this  strikes  you  as  a  bit  sudden,  sir?" 

"It  would  strike  anybody,"  said  Mr.  Twist  trying 
to  be  stern  but  finding  it  difficult,  for  Elliott  was  so 
disarmingly  engaging  and  so  disarmingly  in  love.  The 
radiance  on  Anna-Felicitas's  face  might  have  been 
almost  a  reflection  caught  from  his.  Mr.  Twist  had 
never  seen  two  people  look  so  happy.  He  had  never,  of 
course,  before  been  present  at  the  first  wonderful 
dawning  of  love.  The  whole  room  seemed  to  glow 
with  the  surprise  of  it. 

"There.  You  see?"  said  Elliott,  again  app>ealing 
to  Anna-Felicitas,  who  stood  smiling  beatifically  at 


454        CHUISTOPHER  and  COLUMBUS 

him  without  moving.  "I've  got  to  explain  that  it 
isn't  after  all  as  mad  as  it  seems,  and  that  I'm  a  fear- 
fully decent  chap  and  can  give  you  lots  to  eat,  and  that 
I've  got  a  jolly  little  sister  here  who's  respectable  and 
well-known  besides,  and  I'm  going  to  produce  refer- 
ences to  back  up  these  assertions,  and  proofs  that  I'm 
perfectly  sound  in  health  except  for  my  silly  foot,  which 
isn't  health  but  just  foot  and  which  you  don't  seem  to 
mind  anyhow,  and  how — I  ask  you  how,  Anna-Felicitas 
my  dear,  am  I  to  do  any  of  this  with  you  standing  there 
looking  like — well,  like  that?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  again,  still  not 
moving. 

"Anna-Felicitas,  my  dear,"  he  said,  "won't  you  go?" 

"No,  John,"  said  Anna-Felicitas  gently. 

His  eyes  twinkled  and  danced  more  than  ever.  He 
took  a  step  towards  her,  then  checked  himself  and 
looked  round  beseechingly  at  Mr.  Twist. 

*' Somebody* s  got  to  go,"  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Twist.     "And  I  guess  it's  me." 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

HE  WENT  straight  in  search  of  Anna-Rose. 
He  was  going  to  propose  to  her.  He  couldn't 
bear  it.  He  couldn't  bear  the  idea  of  his  pre- 
cious twins,  his  blessed  little  Twinklers,  both  going  out 
of  his  life  at  the  same  time,  and  he  couldn't  bear,  after 
what  he  had  just  seen  in  the  office,  the  loneliness  of 
being  left  outside  love. 

All  his  life  he  had  stood  on  the  door-mat  outside  the 
shut  door  of  love.  He  had  had  no  love;  neither  at 
home,  where  they  talked  so  much  about  it  and  there 
wasn't  any,  nor,  because  of  his  home  and  its  inhibitions 
got  so  thoroughly  into  his  blood,  anywhere  else.  He 
had  never  tried  to  marry, — ^again  because  of  his  home 
and  his  mother  and  the  whole  only-son-of-a-widow 
business.  He  would  try  now.  He  would  risk  it.  It 
was  awful  to  risk  it,  but  it  was  more  awful  not  to.  He 
adored  Anna-Rose.  How  nearly  the  afternoon  before, 
when  she  sat  crying  in  his  chair,  had  he  taken  her  in 
his  arms!  Why,  he  would  have  taken  her  into  them 
then  and  there,  while  she  was  in  that  state,  while  she 
was  in  the  need  of  comfort,  and  never  let  her  go  out  of 
them  again,  if  it  hadn't  been  that  he  had  got  the  idea 
so  firmly  fixed  in  his  head  that  she  was  a  child.  Fool 
that  he  was.  Elliott  had  dispelled  that  idea  for  him. 
It  wasn't  children  who  looked  as  Anna-Felicitas  had 
looked  just  now  in  the  office.  Anna-Rose,  it  is  true, 
seemed  younger  than  Anna-Felicitas,  but  that  was 
because  she  was  little  and  easily  cried.    He  loved 

425 


426        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

her  for  being  little.  He  loved  her  because  she  easily 
cried.  He  yearned  and  hungered  to  comfort,  to  pet, 
to  take  care  of.  He  was,  as  has  been  pointed  out,  a 
born  mother. 

Avoiding  the  verandah  and  Mrs.  Bilton,  Mr.  Twist 
filled  with  recklessness,  hurried  upstairs  and  knocked 
at  Anna-Rose's  door.  No  answer.  He  listened. 
Dead  silence.  He  opened  it  a  slit  and  peeped  in. 
Emptiness.  Down  he  went  again  and  made  for  the 
kitchen,  because  Li  Koo,  who  always  knew  everything, 
might  know  where  she  was.  Li  Koo  did.  He  jerked 
his  head  towards  the  window,  and  Mr.  Twist  hurried 
to  it  and  looked  out.  There  in  the  middle  of  the  yard 
was  the  cat,  exactly  where  he  had  left  her  an  hour 
before,  and  kneeling  beside  her  stroking  her  stomach 
was  Anna-Rose. 

She  had  her  back  to  the  house  and  her  face  v/as 
hidden.  The  sun  streamed  down  on  her  bare  head  and 
on  the  pale  gold  rings  of  hair  that  frisked  round  her 
neck.  She  didn't  hear  him  till  he  was  close  to  her,  so 
much  absorbed  was  she  apparently  in  the  cat;  and  when 
she  did  she  didn't  look  up,  but  bent  her  head  lower 
than  before  and  stroked  more  assiduously. 

"Anna-Rose,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Yes." 

"Come  and  talk  to  me." 

"I'm  thinking." 

"Don't  think.  Come  and  talk  to  me,  little — little 
dear  one." 

She  bent  her  head  lower  still.  "I'm  thinking,"  she 
said  again. 

"Come  and  tell  me  what  you're  thinking." 

"I'm  thinking  about  cats." 

"About  cats?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  uncertainly. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        427 


if 


Yes,"  said  Anna-Rose,  stroking  t^e  cat's  stomach 
faster  and  carefully  keeping  her  face  hidden  from  him. 
"About  how  wise  and  wonderful  they  are." 

"Well  then  if  that's  all,  you  can  go  on  with  that 
presently  and  come  and  talk  to  me  now." 

"You  see,"  said  Anna-Rose,  not  heeding  this, 
"they're  invariably  twins,  and  more  than  twins,  for 
they're  often  fours  and  sometimes  sixes,  but  still  they 
sit  in  the  sun  quietly  all  their  lives  and  don't  mind  a 
bit  what  their — what  their  twins  do " 

"Ah,"  said  Mr.  Twist.     "Now  I'm  getting  there." 

*'They  don't  mind  a  bit  about  anything.  They 
just  clean  their  whiskers  and  they  purr.  Perhaps  it's 
that  that  comforts  them.  Perhaps  if  I — if  I  had  whis- 
kers and  a — and  a  purr " 

The  cat  leaped  suddenly  to  her  feet  and  shook  herself 
violently.  Something  hot  and  wet  had  fallen  on  her 
beautiful  stomach. 

Anna-Rose  made  a  little  sound  strangers  might  have 
taken  for  a  laugh  as  she  put  out  her  arms  and  caught 
her  again,  but  it  was  a  sound  so  wretched,  so  piteous 
in  the  attempt  to  hide  away  from  him,  that  Mr.  Twist's 
heart  stood  still.  "Oh,  don't  go,"  she  said,  catching 
at  the  cat  and  hugging  her  tight,  "I  can't  let  you 

go "     And  she  buried  her  face  in  her  fur,  so  that 

Mr.  Twist  still  couldn't  see  it. 

"Now  that's  enough  about  the  cat,"  he  said,  speak- 
ing very  firmly.  "You're  coming  with  me."  And  he 
stooped  and  picked  her  up,  cat  and  all,  and  set  her  on 
her  feet. 

Then  he  saw  her  face. 

"Good  God,  Anna-Rose!"  he  exclaimed. 

"I  did  try  not  to  show  you,"  she  said;  and  she  added, 
taking  shelter  behind  her  pride  and  looking  at  him  as 


4£8        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

defiantly  as  she  could  out  of  eyes  almost  closed  up, 
"but  you  mustn't  suppose  just  because  I  hapj>en  to — ^to 
seem  as  if  I'd  been  crying  that  I — that  I'm  minding 
any  tiling." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  who  at  sight  of  her  face 
had  straightway  forgotten  about  himself  and  his  long- 
ings and  his  proposals,  and  only  knew  that  he  must 
comfort  Christopher.  ''Oh  no,"  he  said,  looking  at 
her  aghast,  "I'm  not  supposing  we're  minding  anything, 
either  of  us." 

He  took  her  by  the  arm.  Comfort  Christopher; 
that's  what  he  had  got  to  do.  Get  rid  as  quickly  as 
possible  of  that  look  of  agony — yes,  it  was  downright 
agony — on  her  face. 

He  thought  he  guessed  what  she  was  thinking  and 
feeling;  he  thought — ^he  was  pretty  sure — ^she  was  think- 
ing and  feeling  that  her  beloved  Columbus  had  gone 
from  her,  and  gone  to  a  stranger,  in  a  day,  in  a  few 
hours,  to  a  stranger  she  had  never  even  seen,  never 
even  heard  of;  that  her  Columbus  had  had  secrets  from 
her,  had  been  doing  things  behind  her  back;  that  she 
had  had  perfect  faith  and  trust  in  her  twin,  and  now 
was  tasting  the  dreadful  desolation  of  betrayal;  and 
he  also  guessed  that  she  must  be  sick  with  fears, — ^for 
he  knew  how  responsible  she  felt,  how  seriously  she 
took  the  charge  of  her  beautiful  twin — sick  with  fear 
about  this  unknown  man,  sick  with  the  feeling  of  help- 
lessness, of  looking  on  while  Columbus  rushed  into  what 
might  well  be,  for  all  any  one  knew,  a  deadly  mess-up 
of  her  happiness. 

Well,  he  could  reason  her  out  of  most  of  this,  he  felt. 
Certainly  he  could  reassure  her  about  Elliott,  who  did 
inspire  one  with  confidence,  who  did  seem,  anyhow 
outwardly,   a   very   fitting   mate   for   Anna-Felicitas. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       429 

But  he  was  aghast  at  the  agony  on  her  face.  All  that 
he  guessed  she  was  thinking  and  feeling  didn't  justify 
it.  It  was  unreasonable  to  suffer  so  violently  on  ac- 
count of  what  was,  after  all,  a  natural  happening.  But 
however  unreasonable  it  was,  she  was  suffering. 

He  took  her  by  the  arm.  "You  come  right  along 
with  me,"  he  said;  and  led  her  out  of  the  yard,  away 
from  Li  Koo  and  the  kitchen  window,  towards  the 
eucalyptus  grove  behind  the  house.  "You  come  right 
along  with  me,"  he  repeated,  holding  her  firmly  for 
she  was  very  wobbly  on  her  feet,  "and  we'll  tell 
each  other  all  about  the  things  we're  not  minding.  Do 
you  remember  when  the  St.  Luke  left  Liverpool?  You 
thought  I  thought  you  were  minding  things  then,  and 
were  very  angry  with  me.  We've  made  friends  since, 
haven't  we,  and  we  aren't  going  to  mind  anything  ever 
again  except  each  other." 

But  he  hardly  knew  what  he  was  saying,  so  great 
was  his  concern  and  distress. 

Anna-Rose  went  blindly.  She  stumbled  along, 
helped  by  him,  clutching  the  cat.  She  couldn't  see 
out  of  her  swollen  eyes.  Her  foot  caught  in  a  root,  and 
the  cat,  who  had  for  some  minutes  past  been  thoroughly 
uneasy,  became  panic-stricken  and  struggled  out  of 
her  arms,  and  fled  into  the  wood.  She  tried  to  stop 
it,  but  it  would  go.  For  some  reason  this  broke  down 
her  self-control.  The  warm  cat  clutched  to  her  breast 
had  at  least  been  something  living  to  hold  on  to.  Now 
the  very  cat  ^^had  gone.  Her  pride  collapsed,  and  she 
tumbled  against  Mr.  Twist's  arm  and  just  sobbed. 

If  ever  a  man  felt  like  a  mother  it  was  Mr.  Twist  at 
that  moment.  He  promptly  sat  her  down  on  the 
grass.  "There  now — there,  there  now,"  he  said,  whip- 
ping out  his  handkerchief  and  anxiously  mopping  up 


430        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

her  face.  "This  is  what  I  did  on  the  St.  Luke — do 
you  remember? — there  now — that  time  you  told  me 
about  your  mother — it  looks  like  being  my  permanent 
job — there,  there  now — don't  now — you'll  have  no 
little  eyes  left  soon  if  you  go  on  like  this " 

**0h  but — oh  but — Co-Columbus " 

*'Yes,  yes  I  know  all  about  Columbus.  Don't  you 
worry  about  her.  She's  all  right.  She's  all  right 
in  the  office  at  this  moment,  and  we're  all  right  out 
here  if  only  you  knew  it,  if  only  you  wouldn't  cry  such 
quantities.  It  beats  me  where  it  all  comes  from,  and 
you  so  little — ^there,  there  now " 

"Oh  but— oh  but  Columbus " 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know — you're  worrying  yourself  sick 
because  you  think  you're  responsible  for  her  to  your 
aunt  and  uncle,  but  you  won't  be,  you  know,  once  she's 
married — there,  there  now " 

"Oh  but— oh  but " 

"Now  don't — ^now  please — ^yes,  yes,  I  know — he's 
a  stranger,  and  you  haven't  seen  him  yet,  but  every- 
body was  a  stranger  once,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  quoting 
Anna-Felicitas's  own  argument,  the  one  that  had 
especially  irritated  him  half-an-hour  before,  "and  he's 
real  good — I'm  sure  of  it.  And  you'll  be  sure  too  the 
minute  you  see  him.  That's  to  say,  if  you're  able  to 
see  anything  or  anybody  for  the  next  week  out  of  your 
unfortunate  stuck-together  little  eyes." 

"Oh  but — oh  but — ^you  don't — ^you  haven't " 

"Yes,  yes,  I  have.  Now  turn  your  face  so  that  I 
can  wipe  the  other  side  properly.  There  now,  I 
caught  an  enormous  tear.  I  got  him  just  in  time  be- 
fore he  trickled  into  your  ear.  Lord,  how  sore  your 
poor  little  eyes  are.  Don't  it  even  cheer  you  to  think 
you're  going  to  be  a  sister-in-law,  Anna-Rose?" 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       431 

**0h  but  you  don't — ^you  haven't "  she  sobbed, 

her  face  not  a  whit  less  agonized  for  all  his  reassurances. 

"Well,  I  know  I  wish  I  were  going  to  be  a  brother-in- 
law,"  said  Mr.  Twist,  worried  by  his  inability  to  re- 
assure, as  he  tenderly  and  carefully  dabbed  about  the 
corners  of  her  eyes  and  her  soaked  eyelashes.  "My, 
shouldn't  I  think  well  of  myself." 

Then  his  hand  shook. 

"I  wish  I  were  going  to  be  Anna-Felicitas's  brother- 
in-law,"  he  said,  suddenly  impelled,  perhaps  by  this 
failure  to  get  rid  of  the  misery  in  her  face,  to  hurl  him- 
self on  his  fate.  "Not  yours — ^get  your  mind  quite 
clear  about  that, — but  Anna-Felicitas's."  And  his 
hand  shook  so  much  that  he  had  to  leave  off  drying. 
For  this  was  a  proposal.  If  only  Anna-Rose  would  see 
it,  this  was  a  proposal. 

Anna-Rose,  however,  saw  nothing.  Even  in  normal 
times  she  wasn't  good  at  relationships,  and  had  never 
yet  understood  the  that-man's-father-was-my-father's- 
son  one;  now  she  simply  didn't  hear.  She  was  sitting 
with  her  hands  limply  in  her  lap,  and  sobbing  in  a 
curious  sort  of  anguish. 

He  couldn't  help  being  struck  by  it.  There  was  more 
in  this  than  he  had  grasped.  Again  he  forgot  himself 
and  his  proposal.  Again  he  was  overwhelmed  by  the 
sole  desire  to  help  and  comfort. 

He  put  his  hand  on  the  two  hands  lying  with  such 
an  air  of  being  forgotten  on  her  lap.  "What  is  it.?" 
he  asked  gently.  'Xittle  dear  one,  tell  me.  It's 
clear  I'm  not  dead  on  to  it  yet." 

"Oh— Columbus " 

She  seemed  to  writhe  in  her  misery. 

"Well  yes,  yes  Columbus.  We  know  all  about 
that." 


432        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Anna-Rose  turned  her  quivering  face  to  him.  "Oh, 
you  haven't  seen — ^you  don't  see — it's  only  me  that's 
seen " 

"Seen  what?  What  haven't  I  seen?  Ah,  don't 
cry — don't  cry  like  that " 

"Oh,  I've  lost  her— lost  her " 


"Lost  her?     Because  she's  marrying?" 

"Lost  her — lost  her "  sobbed  Anna-Rose. 

"Come  now,"  remonstrated  Mr.  Twist.  "Come 
now.  That's  just  flat  contrary  to  the  facts.  You've 
lost  nothing,  and  you've  gained  a  brother." 

"Oh, — lost  her — ^lost  her,"  sobbed  Anna-Rose. 

"Come,  come  now,"  said  Mr.  Twist  helplessly. 

"Oh,"  she  sobbed,  looking  at  him  out  of  her  piteous 
eyes,  "has  nobody  thought  of  it  but  me?  Columbus 
hasn't.  I — I  know  she  hasn't  from  what — from  what 
— she  said.  She's  too — ^too  happy  to  think.  But — 
haven't  you  thought — haven't  you  seen — that  she'll 
be  English  now — really  English — and  go  away  from 
me  to  England  with  him — and  I — ^I  can't  go  to  England 
— because  I'm  still — I'm  still — an  alien  enemy — ^and  so 
I've  lost  her — lost  her — lost  my  own  twin " 

And  Anna-Rose  dropped  her  head  on  to  her  knees 
and  sobbed  in  an  abandonment  of  agony. 

Mr.  Twist  sat  without  saying  or  doing  anything  at 
all.  He  hadn't  thought  of  this;  nor,  he  was  sure,  had 
Anna-Felicitas.  And  it  was  true.  Now  he  under- 
stood Anna-Rose's  face  and  the  despair  of  it.  He  sat 
looking  at  her,  overwhelmed  by  the  realization  of  her 
misfortune.  For  a  moment  he  was  blinded  by  it, 
and  didn't  see  what  it  would  mean  for  him.  Then 
he  did  see.  He  almost  leaped,  so  sudden  was  the 
vision,  and  so  luminous. 

"Anna-Rose,"    he    said,   his    voice    trembling,    "I 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS       433 

want  to  put  my  arm  round  you.  That's  because  I 
love  you.  And  if  you'll  let  me  do  that  I  could  tell  you 
of  a  way  there  is  out  of  this  for  you.  But  I  can't  tell  you 
so  well  unless — unless  you  let  me  put  my  a-rm  round 
you  first.     .     .     ." 

He  waited  trembling.  She  only  sobbed.  He  couldn't 
even  be  sure  she  was  listening.  So  he  put  his  arm 
round  her  to  try.  At  least  she  didn't  resist.  So  he 
drew  her  closer.  She  didn't  resist  that  either.  He 
couldn't  even  be  sure  she  knew  about  it.  So  he  put 
his  other  arm  round  her  too,  and  though  he  couldn't 
be  sure,  he  thought — ^he  hardly  dared  think,  but  it  did 
seem  as  if — she  nestled. 

Happiness,  such  as  in  his  lonely,  loveless  life  he  had 
never  imagined,  flooded  Mr.  Twist.  He  looked  down 
at  her  face,  which  was  now  so  close  to  his,  and  saw  that 
her  eyes  w^re  shut.  Great  sobs  went  on  shaking  her 
little  body,  and  her  tears,  now  that  he  wasn't  wiping 
them,  were  rolling  down  her  cheeks  unchecked. 

He  held  her  closer  to  him,  close  to  his  heart  where  she 
belonged,  and  again  he  had  that  sensation,  that  wonder- 
ful sensation,  of  nestling. 

"Little  Blessed,  the  way  out  is  so  simple,"  he  whis- 
pered.    "Little  Blessed,  don't  you  see.?" 

But  whether  Anna-Rose  saw  seemed  very  doubtful. 
There  was  only  that  feeling,  as  to  which  he  was  no  doubt 
mistaken,  of  nestling  to  go  on.  Her  eyes,  anyhow,  re- 
mained shut,  and  her  body  continued  to  heave  with  sobs. 

He  bent  his  head  lower.  His  voice  shook.  "It's  so, 
so  simple,"  he  whispered.  "All  you've  got  to  do  is  to 
marry  me." 

And  as  she  made  an  odd  little  movement  in  his  arms 
he  held  her  tighter  and  began  to  talk  very  fast. 

"No,  no,"  he  said,   "don't  answer  anything  yet. 


434        CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS 

Just  listen.  Just  let  me  tell  you  first.  I  want  to  tell 
you  to  start  with  how  terribly  I  love  you.  But  that 
doesn't  mean  youVe  got  to  love  me — ^you  needn't  if 
you  don't  want  to — if  you  can't — if  you'd  rather  not. 
I'm  eighteen  years  older  than  you,  and  I  know  what 
I'm  like  to  look  at — no,  don't  say  anything  yet — ^just 
listen  quiet  first — but  if  you  married  me  you'd  be  an 
American  right  away,  don't  you  see.^^  Just  as  Anna- 
Felicitas  is  going  to  be  English.  And  I  always  in- 
tended going  back  to  England  as  soon  as  may  be,  and  if 
you  married  me  what  is  to  prevent  your  coming  too? 
Coming  to  England?  With  Anna-Felicitas  and  her 
husband.  Anna-Rose — little  Blessed — ^think  of  it — 
all  of  us  together.  There  won't  be  any  aliens  in  that 
quartette,  I  guess,  and  the  day  you  marry  me  you'll 
be  done  with  being  German  for  good  and  all.  And 
don't  you  get  supposing  it  matters  about  your  not 
loving  me,  because,  you  see,  I  love  you  so  much,  I 
adore  you  so  terribly,  that  anyhow  there'll  be  more 
than  enough  love  to  go  round,  and  you  needn't  ever 
worry  about  contributing  any  if  you  don't  feel  like 
it " 

Mr.  Twist  broke  off  abruptly.  "What  say?  "  he  said, 
for  Anna-Rose  was  making  definite  efforts  to  speak. 
She  was  also  making  definite  and  unmistakable  move- 
ments, and  this  time  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  it; 
she  was  coming  closer. 

"What  say?"  said  IMr.  Twist  breathlessly,  bending 
his  head. 

"But  I  do,"  whispered  Anna-Rose. 

"Do  what?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  again  breathlessly. 

She  turned  her  face  up  to  his.  On  it  was  the  same 
look  he  had  lately  seen  on  Anna-Felicitas's,  shining 
through  in  spite  of  the  disfiguration  of  her  tears. 


CHRISTOPHER  AND  COLUMBUS        435 

"But — of  course  I  do,"  whispered  Anna-Rose,  an 
extraordinary  smile,  an  awe-struck  sort  of  smile,  com- 
ing into  her  face  at  the  greatness  of  her  happiness,  at 
the  wonder  of  it. 

"What?  Do  what?"  said  Mr.  Twist,  still  more 
breathlessly. 

"I — always  did,"  whispered  Anna-Rose. 

''What  did  you  always  did?"  gasped  Mr.  Twist, 
hardly  able  to  believe  it,  and  yet — and  yet — there  on 
her  little  face,  on  her  little  transfigured  face,  shone 
the  same  look. 

"Oh — love  you,"  sighed  Anna-Rose,  nestling  as 
close  as  she  could  get. 


It  was  Mr.  Twist  himself  who  got  on  a  ladder  at 
five  minutes  past  four  that  afternoon  and  pasted  a 
strip  of  white  paper  obliquely  across  the  sign  of  The 
Open  Arms  with  the  word. 

SHUT 

on  it  in  big  letters.  Li  Koo  held  the  foot  of  the  ladder. 
Mr.  Twist  had  only  remembered  the  imminence  of 
four  o'clock  and  the  German  inrush  a  few  minutes 
before  the  hour,  because  of  his  being  so  happy;  and 
when  he  did  he  flew  to  charcoal  and  paper.  He  got 
the  strip  on  only  just  in  time.  A  car  drove  up  as  he 
came  down  the  ladder. 

"What?"  exclaimed  the  principal  male  occupant  of 
the  car,  pointing,  thwarted  and  astonished,  to  the  sign. 

"Shut,"  said  Mr.  Twist. 

"Shut?" 

"Shut." 

THE   END 


THE  COUNTRY  LIFE  PRESS 
GARDEN  CITY,  N.  Y. 


-^  ''"'°  "Mediate  recaU. 


:76B 


GENERAL  LIBRARY    U.C.  BERKELEY 


BDOmSEEl? 


